


Tokyo Ghost Story

by canis_lupus



Category: Highlander: The Raven, Highlander: The Series, White Collar, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, D/s relationship, Established Relationship, F/M, M/M, Multi, Open Relationships, Other, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-08-23
Packaged: 2018-01-23 18:56:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1576025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canis_lupus/pseuds/canis_lupus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years after Neal's death, Peter is on the trail of another bright young thief. But the more he investigates young Amanda, the less things make sense- unless you believe that sometimes, people come back from the dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Started at the end of White Collar season 3, obviously this story diverges from canon as since established. As for Highlander/The Raven, it plays an indefinite number of years after the end of both series. Also, cameo appearances of Detective Conan/Magic Kaito characters, which you needn't have read or watched to follow the story.

It happened in Japan. 

Years had gone by, and really, it was quite unlikely that it should happened at all. But it did happen, one day in Japan. 

Years had gone by since Neal Caffrey died. And Peter carried on. He went to work, he solved cases, he led his team, he wrote reports, he did all the things he'd done before Neal Caffrey had entered his life, and he carried on with them around the big, gaping hole Neal Caffrey's death left in his life. 

El carried on, too. And they smiled at each other, and had dinner together, and went out to celebrate their anniversaries and birthdays and Christmases, and they went to bed together, and woke up together. And if they often felt that there was a laugh missing, and a setting on the table, and presents ungiven and unreceived, jokes unmade, and that their bed was too large– well, they shared that, too. 

So, the world didn't end when Neal Caffrey died. The earth didn't stop turning. Peter's life didn't end. But sometimes, it felt like it had. Sometimes, it felt like the sun had moved behind a permanent cloud the day Neal died. There was less colour in the world, there were fewer bright, sharp edges. There was less exhilaration, less excitement, less challenge, less of the thrill of the chase. 

So, after years that drifted by in a haze of normality, Amanda Louvel was the best thing that happened to Peter.

Amanda Louvel was young, brilliant, and had a flair for mischief that Peter hadn't seen since Neal. Kramer recognized that as well, and so he forwarded the file to Peter when a set of valuable old documents mysteriously vanished without a trace out of an apparently undisturbed, highly secured showcase in Washington state– replaced by one of those creepy, paw-waving, grinning lucky cats you could buy for next to nothing all over Chinatown. So Peter flew to Seattle, and had a look at the cat (he was pretty sure it was mocking him...). Kramer and he eventually figured out how the thief had gotten past security and into the showcase, but the case had been bounced around the departments and states for a precious few days, and the trail was cold by the time Peter picked it up. 

That was it about the “cat-burglar” for a little while, but Peter kept an ear on the ground. Someone that good, someone that creative, did not appear out of nowhere. And they never stopped after the first success. And they didn't. Thefts happened, and Peter finally had a puzzle worth solving again. El was happy for him, and he felt a little guilty for the amount of lunches and dinners he missed. But he felt awake again, alive, engaged with the world around him. 

He managed to put a name and a face to the thief pretty quick. Amanda Louvel. A slender, graceful young woman, with short black hair and big dark eyes, beautiful, really– and she knew it, and used it. She wasn't overly careful about staying off his radar. She was very, very careful about leaving evidence. She was smart, and she was slick. Bold as brass, too, and charming, so ready with a bright smile. Very much like another young thief he had once known. He knew it was her, and she knew he knew, and he couldn't prove a damn thing. 

He wished Neal was there.

But that was an old wish, a frequent wish, and he shook it off soon enough, and lost himself in the chase, in the clues and puzzles. 

She was a bit of a mystery and a half, was young Ms Louvel. She'd just appeared, twenty years old, out of nowhere. Supposedly, she'd been born in some tiny, remote town in Montreal. Only, the town records had been destroyed in a fire about fifteen years ago, so there was no way of verifying that. According to her own statement, she'd been home schooled, and had inherited quite a bit of money from some remote relative not too long ago. That had to be quite some money, considering Ms Louvel had very eclectic tastes for someone born and raised in a remote Canadian village. So, yes, Peter thought she was bullshitting him, and he left her in very little doubt of that. She just smiled and gave him a profoundly innocent look with those big dark eyes of hers. Peter knew from experience that only the professionally guilty knew how to look that innocent. 

Ms Louvel also liked to travel. Canada, the U.S., Europe... she was all over the place. And wherever she went, valuable things just happened to go missing. Mostly, it was jewels, and that wasn't exactly Peter's speciality, but he got to keep the case anyway, because of his experience with hunting down brilliant young thieves. 

He studied her like he hadn't studied anyone since Neal. 

Like Neal, she wasn't easy to figure out. Like Neal, her motives weren't those of the sort of criminal Peter usually dealt with. White collar crime was almost always about money in one way or another, and greed of one sort of another was almost always a major motive. 

True, being rich didn't preclude greed. Far from it, actually. But Ms Louvel... no, like Neal, she relished the challenge, stealing just to prove that she could. And there was her biggest weakness. Yes, she was good. She was very, very good. But she was also reckless. Unlike most criminals, she didn't seem to fear being caught. Oh, she didn't want to be caught. But she treated it like a game, like losing and jail was inconvenient, rather than frightening. 

Neal had been much the same. Neal was annoyed by jail, and he became bored there, but he wasn't afraid of it. After their first few months working together, he had seemed far more concerned about hurting Peter's feelings than about bars and locks and guards and bad food. Then again, he had proven that jail couldn't hold him if he didn't let it. 

He'd been on the chase almost two years, on and off, when he was invited to the conference. Interpol had a big hand in organising it, and he was invited as a guest speaker for how to keep your eye on your criminal if they skipped countries. It was in Tokyo, Japan. 

Usually, this wasn't his sort of thing. He did his homework by keeping up with new developments in his field, but he didn't much like the limelight. So maybe he had his own small share of fame as the man who'd caught and reformed Neal Caffrey, as the man who'd managed incredible clearing rates together with his pet convict... but he didn't much like to talk about it. Talking about it hurt.

He had a strong suspicion Amanda Louvel was in Japan. So he went.

***

Tokyo was huge, and loud, and crowded, and lonely. He missed El from the moment they kissed good-bye at JFK. So he threw himself into work. He'd have about two weeks in Japan, and he was determined to find out what Ms Louvel was up to here. So far, nothing had been stolen. Well, nothing that she'd steal. Of course, there was a bit of a language barrier, since he didn't speak much Japanese, and he couldn't for the life of him understand them if most of the Japanese spoke English. Luckily for him, he met a serious young man at the conference who was half-British, half-Japanese, fluent in both, and amazingly well-versed in chasing thieves, considering his age.

With his help, Peter tracked down the hotel Ms Louvel was staying in (the Four Seasons Chinzan-so, of course) and then he settled down in his rental for a good, old-fashioned stake-out. He watched Ms Louvel flounce about, flirt outrageously with the staff, go on a ridiculously expensive shopping spree, have lunch at an equally expensive sushi bar, and sweep back into her hotel laden with bags. 

In the evening, of course, she went out, dressed to the nines in something white, airy and glittery that clung to her body in all the right places. Peter tailed her cab to the National Museum of Modern Art, where bright lights and music and milling people announced an opening. Well. At least he wouldn't need an invitation to follow her inside. 

By the time he'd found a parking space for his rental and made it back to the museum, obviously, there wasn't a sign to be seen of her outside the doors. He just prayed she hadn't made him, and went in. 

Inside, it was bright and clean, the pieces displayed against stark, white walls. People milled about, talking and laughing, nibbling on finger foods. The pictures on the wall didn't mean much to Peter. Neal would've loved this, he thought with the familiar pang. Neal would've lectured him and laughed at him and scoffed at his ignorance. 

Peter closed his eyes for a moment, pushed the ache aside, and went searching for a beautiful woman in a white dress. 

He found her in a quiet corner, not alone. There was a man with her. His suit was neat and trim, hugging his legs and backside and shoulders in flattering lines, and his hat on his dark hair was cocked just so. 

The shock of recognition almost sent him to his knees. 

Then he told himself not to be silly. It had happened before, and he'd just been thinking about Neal. 

But Neal was dead. And not in a “I could conceivably have faked my own death and still be alive somewhere” way; he was dead in a messy, choking, gasping, getting-blood-all-over-Peter's-favourite-suit-and-lucky-tie way. He was dead in a dying-in-Peter's-arms way. Peter had watched as his chest had heaved futilely against the blood pooling in his lungs, he'd heard Neal's last, ragged, cracked whisper of “I'm sorry, Peter, I'm so sorry...”, he'd held the gaze of Neal's pained, blue, blue eyes until they went empty and glassy. He'd held Neal's limp, broken, beautiful body there in the dirt and grime under the overpass until Jones and Diana had carefully steered him away, until the EMT people took Neal finally away from him, until someone pushed him to sit down in the open door of a car, handed him a towel to clean Neal's blood off of his hands, Neal's blood that was sticky and bright and still warm with the last of his body heat. Peter wiped it off. Peter called El.

“Honey,” he'd said, his voice a hoarse, unfamiliar thing. 

“Peter? What's wrong?” Her voice was instantly alarmed, apprehensive.

“It's Neal,” he'd said. “He's dead,” he'd said. 

El hadn't said anything at all, had just made this small, wounded sound that would've broken Peter's heart if he wasn't so deep in shock.

That night, he'd clung to her, had muffled his screams of rage and pain against her shoulder while she shook with him and sobbed until her voice was gone and her beautiful, beloved face was red, her eyes bloodshot. They hadn't slept much that night. Someone else had finished the case, had arrested the petty little con-man who'd ended Neal's wonderful existence with three shots from his black-market gun. 

That was a good thing. Peter just wanted to kill the punk. 

Instead, he grieved, and went to his counselling, and practised at life without Neal.

***

Ms Louvel laughed, and said something, and her companion turned his head to look at her, showed Peter his face in profile, forehead and cheekbones and nose and lips and chin, every inch of which Peter had touched, tasted. Blue, blue eyes, even from the distance, dancing with laughter, bright, white smile.

“Neal,” Peter said and took a step forward without meaning to. 

They both looked at him, but Peter had only eyes for that young, familiar face. For the fraction of a fraction of a second, shock flitted across Neal's features, shock and recognition. Then it was gone, then he was looking at Peter in a placid, faintly puzzled way. 

“Excuse me?” Neal asked politely. 

“Neal,” Peter said again and strode closer. 

Neal's eyes flickered to the side, to exchange a look with Ms Louvel. 

“May I help you, Sir?” he asked Peter, and Peter slowed to a stop an arm's length from them. He looked so puzzled, so confused... so young. He looked exactly like the Neal Caffrey Peter remembered. Exactly like the Neal Caffrey who'd died in his arms. He didn't look thirty-five. And Neal was dead. And maybe Peter had imagined that recognition. He knew how the mind could play tricks on you, how it made you see what you wanted to see. 

“I...” he said. “You... look like a friend of mine.”

A quick, charming smile. “You must have me confused, I'm afraid.” He had an accent, Peter noticed, crisp and British with a faint trace of a French lilt. 

Yes, he must have. But he knew that smile. 

“Agent Burke,” Ms Louvel said and he turned to look at her. “What a surprise to meet you here!” She smiled at him as well, confidential and sly. She turned to Neal. “Noel, darling, may I introduce you to Agent Peter Burke from the FBI.”

Neal's (or Noel's?) eyebrows rose, and he gave Peter a perfect impression of the faint apprehensiveness civilians showed when meeting an FBI agent for the first time. Then he held out his hand for a shake. 

“Pleased to meet you, Agent Burke.” His hand was warm in Peter's, very much alive, very much real, but his squeeze was softer than Neal's, without challenge. Then he turned to Ms Louvel. 

“Amanda, you never told me you knew an agent of the FBI!”

“Oh, we just met briefly,” she declared, waving a dismissive hand. “Some sort of misunderstanding about missing jewellery in New York. Agent Burke was under the impression I had something to do with it.” She gave Peter another smile, one of those far-too-innocent ones. 

Noel (or Neal) looked shocked, and for the life of him, Peter couldn't tell whether it was fake. “Gosh!” he exclaimed. “You aren't in any trouble, are you?” 

She laughed. “No, no! It's all been cleared up, darling, nothing to worry about.”

Yes, Peter was sure she'd cleaned up well after herself, and she must've read his thoughts on his face, because she gave him another sly look. 

“Now, Noel, love, I wish to have a look at the other paintings. Come along.” 

She slung her arm through his and started to pull him away. “Agent Burke,” she inclined her head at him in passing. 

Neal (or Noel) gave him a sort of helpless look over his shoulder as he was towed away. “A pleasure to meet you!” he called back in his cultured accent.

Peter stood there for a long time before he finally turned and went back to his car. He drove to his hotel, and then he lay awake in the dark, staring at the ceiling. 

Nothing made sense. 

Neal was dead. This man was too young to be Neal. Every fibre of his being told him that this was Neal. His face, his body, the way he moved, his voice– this was Neal. Only, logically, it couldn't be Neal.


	2. Chapter 2

“Fuck!” Neal swore as he dropped himself onto Amanda's couch. “Shit! Fuck!”

Amanda raised a sardonic eyebrow at him and handed him a glass with a finger of amber liquid. 

“Language, darling,” she chided. 

Neal gave her a weak glare, then sipped at his drink. He needed it. 

Amanda settled down on the couch next to him, leaned her shoulder against his, and took a sip of her own drink. 

“So... Your FBI agent is actually Peter Burke?”

Neal glared at his glass. “Yes.” He turned to look at her. “Why didn't you tell me he was after you?”

Amanda gave him a reproachful look. “And how, pray tell, should I have known that it was relevant? You knew very well a few agencies were after me.”

Neal grunted, half-amused. “A few agencies are always after you.”

Amanda sniffed haughtily. “I'll have you know I abstained from crime for almost a decade!”

“And yet, here you are, chased by Peter Burke,” Neal commented dryly. He took another sip of his drink and frowned. “He's going to catch you, you know.”

“Sweetheart, just because he caught you doesn't mean he'll catch me.”

But Neal shook his head. “Don't underestimate Peter,” he warned. 

Amanda regarded him curiously. “I knew you were attached, Neal, but I hadn't realized you thought that highly of him. I admit he's gorgeous, but I've always considered him a little... blunt.”

Neal snorted. “Yes, a little blunt. No subtlety, our Peter, right? Honest and righteous, but not very creative. Inflexible. Maybe just a little dumb?” 

Amanda looked at him warily, but she didn't deny it. 

“That's what you're supposed to think. It's instinct, mostly, but Peter creates this persona, and before you realize, he's used it to lure you into his trap and he's slapping cuffs on you, smug as you please. Make no mistake. Peter's smart. And he's very, very determined. He'll go over the same file for hours and hours if he has to, until he finds that little detail that doesn't fit. And he will find it. And then he'll use it to unravel the entire damn thing and trip you up with your own plots.”

Amanda was smiling at him, very indulgently. 

“What?” he demanded. 

“You do love him, don't you?”

Neal buried his hands in his hair, scrubbed them over his head. 

“Yes,” he admitted. “Yes, I do.” He looked up. “I miss him, Amanda. Him, and El, and New York. It was a good life. The best I've had in a while.”

She slung an arm around him and rested her head on his shoulder. She didn't say anything. She didn't need to. They both knew how painful it was to love mortals.

***

The next day, Peter had his talk scheduled. He hadn't slept enough and a headache was pounding behind his eyes. He gave his talk and answered questions on autopilot. If he made a fool of himself, at least no one said so. Afterwards he sat in the hotel bar, nursed a drink, and wondered whether to call El. But what would he say to her? “I've seen Neal”? Yeah... no.

He clenched his hand around his glass until his knuckles went white. Amanda Louvel. That was his case. She was here. If she was here, it was likely she was planning something. Therefore, he resolved to go back to keeping an eye on her. And if he hoped to catch another glimpse of young Noel/Neal... well, no one had to know, did they?

***

He followed her for the next two days without a glimpse of Noel/Neal, or any mischief on her part. As far as he could tell, she seemed to be on a holiday. She went sightseeing to the Tokyo Tower (like the Eiffel tower, only red), and she did more shopping. Apart from the insane amount of money she was spending, she appeared perfectly legit. The second evening, she met with a man and they went out. It wasn't Noel/Neal this time. This guy was a good bit older than she was, Peter would estimate early thirties, tall, handsome, broad shoulders and brown hair. They talked and smiled and flirted a lot, and from their body language Peter assumed they were familiar with each other. She took this man up to her hotel room with her, and he hadn't yet left when Peter reluctantly went to seek his own bed at three in the morning.

In fact, when he came back the next morning, he was in time to catch them and tail them to a nice café where they had breakfast together before kissing good-bye and going their separate ways. But he was back in the afternoon and entered the hotel without her. He didn't come back out either. Ms Louvel returned a few hours later, and he didn't see any more of her for the rest of the day. He went back to his own bed earlier that night. He needed his sleep, too, to keep himself sharp, but he really would have preferred if he could have the hotel under surveillance 24/7. But this was Japan, and so he had no resources to call on without concrete evidence. Possibly, stalking her like he did was very much pushing the legal limits in itself. 

He caught a few hours of sleep, but half-remembered dreams of Neal woke him in the middle of the night, and he was too restless to fall back asleep, so he got up again. He considered heading over to Ms Louvel's hotel, but decided against it. Instead, he turned his mind to the problem of Noel/Neal. He wanted to find out more about him. Only, all he had to go on was a first name, and no access to the local databases of personal information. And he had really no grounds for suspecting this man of anything– apart from the fact that he looked like Neal Caffrey from ten years ago and associated with person of interest Amanda Louvel. Hmmm...

Eventually, Peter went back to bed. And the next morning, he decided to screw it all, and got in contact with the local authorities. 

Inspector Nakamori, leader of the theft division of Tokyo PD was visibly unhappy with his presence– but then, his English was rather limited, so communication was a little difficult. After a few, awkward, ineffective attempts at explaining things, Nakamori barked at one of his underlings and then told Peter to sit and wait (at least, that was what Peter understood.) 

Much to his surprise, half an hour later the young man he'd met at the conference appeared. With him as interpreter, Peter finally managed to convey his wish, and Nakamori grudgingly granted it after a few phone calls, under the condition that the young man, Mr Hakuba, assisted him. That was just fine by Peter, since he had no hope in hell of even reading any Japanese records. 

And with his help, Peter actually managed to find Noel/Neal in the DMV records (or their Japanese equivalent). Noel Aiton, 23 years old, was a French citizen, occupation teacher, living in Kyoto. 

It probably didn't mean anything. But Neal loved France, and Neal had enjoyed teaching. El had said he'd make a good teacher. For some stupid, non-logical, gut-feeling reason, this strengthened Peter's belief that this was Neal. It didn't make sense, but felt familiar. Like this was an alias Neal would create. 

When Peter returned home after his two weeks, he didn't tell El. How could he? It was crazy. Noel Aiton couldn't be Neal, because Neal was dead. And even if Neal were still alive, he'd have celebrated his thirty-fifth birthday this year. Noel Aiton just didn't look old enough. So he didn't tell El. But he pulled what FBI resources he could to request background information on Noel Aiton. He also started to search for the other man Ms Louvel had been with. 

All in all, it was a terrible lot of paperwork, and finding the proverbial needle in a haystack would've been more promising. 

Noel Aiton had been born in France, but had grown up in the UK and attended a British school after his father moved there for a job. During his junior high school years the family had moved again, this time all the way to Japan. He had finished school there, and was currently employed by a private school in Kyoto as an English teacher. Or at least, that was what his files said. He had a good income and didn't live above his means. He didn't have a criminal record, he didn't even have outstanding parking tickets. He'd never been involved in a criminal investigation. There was no trace of how or when he could've possibly come in contact with Amanda Louvel, or how deep their association went. 

Ms Louvel's mystery man, on the other hand, actually did show up in a few of the surveillance pictures they had from her time in New York. He hadn't stayed at her hotel there, and hadn't even ever spoken to her as far as they'd been aware. But he was there, in the background of one round of pictures, rising from a diner booth next to hers, crossing in front of the window of the diner on his way down the sidewalk a picture later as she rose as well. 

Well. It was something. Peter had to do some convincing, but Hughes let him get his hands on the credit card transactions of that diner on that day. Peter knew that if his hints and crazy ideas hadn't had panned out in the past, Hughes never would've signed off on it. But he did, and Peter managed to get his hands on the data. Of course, it was over a year old. It took Peter and his team two weeks to whittle the list down to five names they could not exclude. One of the names had a bank branch in Washington state attached to it. A few phone calls, and Peter's hunch panned out. Ms Louvel's mystery man wasn't so much of a mystery now: Lyall Crawford, 32 years old, living in Seacouver near the Canadian boarder. He wasn't married, no children, no living relatives. He worked as a bouncer and bodyguard, and had a subscription to a local dojo. All in all, he struck Peter as a blue-collar kind of guy. Once again, there was no indication of when or where he might have met with extravagant young Ms Louvel. Unlike Noel Aiton, however, he was a US citizen, and therefore in Peter's jurisdiction. Peter reached for the phone. 

Crawford was polite but reserved. Oh, yes, he was happy to help the FBI in any way he could. Amanda Louvel? No, he couldn't say that he'd heard of her... 

“That's strange,” Peter said. “I recently saw you having breakfast with her. You even kissed her good-bye.”

Oh, really? He sounded politely puzzled.

“Yeah. Tall, beautiful woman, short black hair, a Tuesday morning in Tokyo... that should be pretty memorable, right?”

Oh! Oh, Amanda Louvel. Crawford pronounced it with a credible French accent. Yes, yes, he knew her. They were friends, of a sort. Sometimes they went out together when she was in town. 

“Ah, so she's your... girlfriend?” 

No, Crawford wouldn't say that. They weren't that... committed, if Peter understood what he meant. 

Peter assured him that he did, and thanked him for his help. 

He was tempted to fly up there and interview the guy in person. Sure, he couldn't really pin anything on Crawford, no more than he could Aiton, but Peter knew when he was being bullshitted. And he was being bullshitted.

Instead, he stayed at his desk and started to look deeper into Crawford.

***

“Amanda.”

“Nick.”

“I just got a call from an Agent Peter Burke with the FBI.”

“Dammit!” Nick raised his eyebrows at the empty room and leaned away from the phone a little. That had been surprisingly vehement. 

“So what did you tell him?”

“Well, it seems he saw us together in Tokyo. I told him we were... friends with benefits, occasionally.”

“Aw, damn! I thought I'd made sure he wasn't following me. I'm sorry, Nick. Did he buy it?”

Nick made a doubtful noise. “I'm not sure, honestly. He didn't push, and he was polite enough, but... I'm not sure.”

***

“Oh, go on, say it!” Amanda said with a roll of her eyes as she accepted a glass of wine from Neal.

Neal gave her his bright, disarming grin. “I told you so.”

“Yes, yes, you did. He's quite resourceful, your Agent Burke. Now what do you suggest?”

Neal shrugged. “Lie low. Don't do anything illegal and hope he won't be able to dig up anything from the past.”

Amanda leaned back into the soft cushions of her couch with a huff and pouted. “Wait and hope for the best? That's your advice?”

“Unless you want to kill off another identity, yes.”

“I've only just started this one!” Amanda protested. “Oh, well, fine. Spoil my fun.” She looked at him, and felt her dramatic pout shift into a smile. “But if you must spoil my fun, little Neal, the least you can do is entertain me.” 

She held out a commanding hand to him, and his eyes darkened. 

“And what would entertain my lady?” 

She told him. In detail.


	3. Chapter 3

Peter rested his elbow on his desk and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. This case, he admitted, was driving him crazy. There were so many little things that kept pinging his radar as off. How did a young high school teacher from Kyoto know an international jewel thief? Where had this bouncer and bodyguard in Seacouver acquired his skills? There were obvious, probable answers to these questions: Aiton could just have met her while he was in Tokyo on holiday. They were both young, attractive people, it wasn't far fetched to write it off as a chance acquaintance. And Crawford could have just learned on the job. But... Peter didn't really believe in coincidence. Not when the mild-mannered high school teacher looked like Neal Caffrey. Peter's gut told him that he was missing something, that there was a connection. 

He took a deep breath, told himself to cowboy up, and went back to work. 

It all came back to Amanda Louvel. Where had she learned her skills? Peter decided that it was time he brushed up on his jewel thieves. 

From there on out, things became very strange. Because there was an Amanda Montrose who'd been a prime suspect in several high profile robberies, especially in the Boston area, about ten years ago. And when Peter requested the files to be sent over, more out of curiosity, really, he hit a wall. It was a soft wall, but it was a wall nonetheless. Because most of the files were missing. Boston PD was quite flustered, and couldn't explain how it had happened. There was enough left to determine that she'd been brought in for questioning at some point and that she'd had a Boston address, but there were no details, and there were no pictures. 

When he searched for Amanda Montrose in the records, he found... nothing. According to the computer data, she'd never existed. Now that... that was really, really strange, because Peter knew for a fact that she had existed. This time he actually did pack up and fly to Boston to talk to some of the cops who had been investigating Ms Montrose. 

He met with much the same frustration he felt himself. Amanda Montrose also had never actually been arrested in any of the heists they were sure she'd been involved in. Peter talked with a Detective Frost, who'd actually interrogated her, and even a decade later disliked her more than he disliked the “Feds”. Peter couldn't say he liked the guy; he was far too emotionally involved, far too crass for Peter's liking, but he certainly was useful. Especially when Peter showed him their surveillance pictures of Amanda Louvel. He didn't know why he did it. It had something to do with a young high school teacher in Japan who looked just like Neal. 

“Oh, yeah, that's her,” Frost said. “Used to be blond, y'know, dyed almost white, and the hair shorter, but that's her.” He flipped through the pictures. “And what have we here?” He squinted at the picture that was a little blurry. “Fuck me if that isn't Wolfe. I thought the bastard bit it.”

Peter leaned over the table. Frost was staring at Lyall Crawford crossing in front of the diner. 

With his heart in his throat, he asked: “Who'd you say that is?”

Frost gave him a frown. “Nick Wolfe. Fucking traitor. Used to be a cop, you know? Always on his high horse, that one. Then he got his partner shot and he quit and shacked up with Montrose. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. He pulled jobs with her, I know he did, but damn if we could ever prove a fucking thing. I thought he died, though. The paper said he got shot on some body-guarding job in France.” 

“When was this?” Peter asked and tried to make his hammering heartbeat calm down. 

“What, that he got shot? Dunno, three years ago or so.”

“What about Ms Montrose?”

Detective Frost shrugged. “No idea. They left the city some ten years ago. Haven't seen hide or hair of them since, just that article of Wolfe biting it overseas.”

Peter thanked the man, and went to ask for Nick Wolfe's police records. 

They were missing. 

No matter how flustered the files clerks and the local cops became, they couldn't find Wolfe's files, or any electronic record that he'd ever worked in their department. The elder ones clearly remembered him, and they recognized him on Peter's surveillance picture, but the data was gone. It seemed the department had caught itself a virus some time after Wolfe's supposed death. The tech people had cleared things up, and they'd thought they'd recovered all the data. No one had noticed that some ex-cop's records had fallen victim to the virus. No one had made any connection between that ex-cop's death and the virus. Someone had opened the wrong attachment, right? It happened. 

Peter was very thoughtful as he travelled back to New York. 

He had an ex-cop who should have been in his mid-forties when he died three years ago in a surveillance picture from last year. 

He had a very accomplished thief, 21 years old, in the same set of pictures who'd been also a suspect in robberies a decade ago. 

He had another thief, who'd died in his arms, and a young teacher in Japan. 

What did all of these people have in common? They knew each other. They had new identities. They were too young. They were supposed to be dead. 

Peter went home. He kissed El, they had dinner and took Satchmo for a walk (a slow one– poor Satch was getting old), they went to bed and had sex. It took him a long time to fall asleep. He missed Neal.

***

Fact: People didn't come back from the dead.

Fact: People aged. 

Fact: People very rarely looked exactly like someone else. Certainly not three connected people, unless he'd suddenly stumbled across the secret society of doppelgängers. 

Peter pondered that for a moment. It might almost make sense. Well, as much sense as Mozzie's apocalyptic fear of Hitler clones.

Fact: If Lyall Crawford was Nick Wolfe, Peter knew where he'd learned his job. If Amanda Louvel was Amanda Montrose, she wasn't a beginner. If Noel Aiton was Neal Caffrey... 

He closed his eyes for a moment. He didn't know what it meant if Noel Aiton was Neal Caffrey, just that it hurt. 

He was going crazy. That was it. He was suffering a mental break-down. That was why he was entertaining the notion that he was looking at three people who had died and resumed life under different identities. 

Well. He didn't know that Amanda Montrose had died. He had no confirmation that Nick Wolfe had actually been shot. The only one he knew without a doubt to be dead was Neal. 

Resuming life with different identities itself wasn't such a big deal, of course. Neal had done that often enough while Peter had chased him. Peter had seen how Neal could whip up an entire fake, plausible person at the drop of a hat. 

But what about the ageing? People got older. People got wrinkles and grey hairs, and while you could do a lot with clothing and make-up and hair dye, there was a limit. He'd been face to face with Amanda Louvel. She did not look forty-five. She also didn't look like she was wearing a pound of make-up. 

Peter rubbed a hand over his face, tapped his thumb against his lips. 

Well. There was only one of them he had access to.

***

Peter raised his hand and knocked on the door of 1769 Riverside Drive, the address given on Lyall Crawford's driver's license. This wasn't the sort of place Peter had expected Crawford to live in. It was, on the other hand, just the place he would expect Amanda Louvel to live in.

It was big. It was white. It had a driveway. It didn't have a garden, it had a park. 

Crawford opened the door. He was in faded jeans and a white under shirt. His eyes measured Peter up and down in one quick sweep. “Yeah?”

“Nick Wolfe?”

A blink, nothing more. Crawford's expression didn't change, didn't slip. Maybe it became a little stiller around the edges. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, sorry. My mistake,” Peter said. “I'm looking for Lyall Crawford.”

“That's me,” Crawford agreed placidly, crossed his arms across his chest and leaned against the door frame. 

“Peter Burke, FBI. We spoke on the phone a little while ago?”

“Oh, right.” Crawford's face still didn't give anything away. “What can I do for you today, Agent Burke?”

Well. There was nothing but go for it. 

“I admit I find myself in a bit of a pickle,” Peter said. He pulled out the surveillance photos from the folder under his arm. He handed over the one of Crawford crossing in front of the diner. “Is this you, Mr Crawford?”

Crawford studied it critically in silence for a few moments. “I suppose it is,” he finally admitted, handing it back to Peter. His eyes met Peter's with a measured, unflinching look. This man was not afraid of him, Peter realized, not even in the abstract way most civilians were. This man was very comfortable in his own skin, his own power, and Peter didn't intimidate him in the least. 

Peter chose another picture. “And is this Amanda Louvel?”

This time, Crawford flicked his eyes down for only a moment before they met Peter's again.  
“It is.”

Peter nodded slowly. “I see.” 

Crawford didn't react. 

“Well, that puts me in a rather awkward position,” Peter said apologetically. He knew his eyes didn't match his tone. “You see, I recently spoke to a certain Detective Frost from the Boston police department.” Ah, finally, a reaction. It was the most minimal flicker of unease across Crawford's features, but it was all Peter needed to keep going through with this craziness. “And would you know, he quite definitely identified the people in these pictures as a Detective Nick Wolfe and Amanda Montrose. His colleagues corroborated this.”

Crawford assumed a faintly puzzled expression. “How strange. I don't know about Amanda, but I've never been to Boston, nor have I ever been with the police.”

“Yes, so it would seem,” Peter agreed. “Odd, how you have been identified from last year's pictures as a police detective who supposedly died three years ago.”

Crawford raised his eyebrows. “Are you accusing me of something, Agent Burke?”

Instead, Peter pulled out a different picture. “Have you ever seen this man?”

Crawford's eyes flicked down automatically, and he blinked in surprise, once, then looked up again. Peter saw just a shadow of wariness cross his face. 

“No,” he answered after the shortest moment of hesitation. “I don't believe I have.”

“Thank you for your time,” Peter said. “If you happen to speak to Ms Louvel, I'd be grateful if you could tell her to call me. Here's my card.” He handed it over. “And if you think of anything, feel free to call me any time.”

“Of course, Agent Burke,” Crawford agreed. “Have a good day.”

“And you.” Peter inclined his head and walked back to his rental. 

He was under no illusions that Crawford would call him. But as crazy as it was, this conversation confirmed his feeling that he was on to something here– that he was on the right track. Crawford was good, cool as an icicle, but he wasn't happy with the questions Peter was asking, and that meant Peter was asking the right questions. Now all he had to do was find the answers. Ha. Yes, that would be piece of cake, he was sure of it.

***

“Nick.”

“Amanda. Guess who just paid me a visit?”

He heard her groan over the phone. “Burke.”

“That's the one. He very politely asked me to tell you to call him when I spoke to you next.”

“And that's why you're calling me?”

Nick snorted. “Why, Amanda, am I interrupting anything?” He didn't wait for an answer. “No, of course that's not why I'm calling. I'm calling because he informed me that you and I have been identified as Amanda Montrose and Nick Wolfe on a bunch of photos he has by half the Boston police department.”

There was a brief silence on the other end of the phone line. 

“I hate photography,” Amanda eventually said. 

“What do you want me to do?”

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing. He was fishing, I denied everything.”

He heard Amanda take a deep breath. “Good. Good. Let's keep it at that. I think I'll extend my holiday a little longer than planned. Just go about your business as usual. And Nick? No more phone calls, unless it's an emergency. Even then, try to use a payphone or something.”

“All right. Oh, one more thing: He showed me a picture of the friend you're visiting over there, asked me whether I'd ever seen him. I said no. He didn't push, so I think he doesn't have any information to the contrary. Just thought you'd want to know.”

“Yes, yes, I do, thanks. Nick? Love you. Be careful.”

“Take your own damn advice. Love you, too.”

***

“What'd Peter do now?” Neal asked. He was sprawled decadently across Amanda's bed in nothing but a bath robe, his fingers playing with a white silk scarf.

Amanda sighed deeply. “He found Nick Wolfe and Amanda Montrose. And he's showing your picture around.” 

Neal whistled softly. “Not bad, Peter,” he commented as he wrapped the scarf around one hand and pulled, testing its strength. 

“Do you think he'll actually work it out?”

Neal shrugged. “Peter's pretty down to earth. He doesn't believe in magic and miracles, like most people these days. On the other hand, he's not afraid to think outside the box. I think it depends on how much concrete evidence he can get his hands on.”

Amanda moaned and flopped down on the bed next to him. “Things used to be so much easier,” she said mournfully. 

Neal gave an amused snort. “Yes, the good old days before computers and the internet and world-wide communication. You need to learn to be more careful.” He flicked her on the nose with the end of the scarf. 

Amanda scowled at him. “Hush, you. Don't forget who taught you everything you know.”

Neal smiled at her, brightly. “Methos?” 

“Brat,” she told him affectionately. “I should send you to deal with this bothersome FBI agent.”

The humour left Neal's face. “No.”

Amanda held his eyes. 

“I can't go back, Amanda,” Neal said softly, eyes again on the scarf as he ran one end through the fingers of his free hand. “Too many people saw me die. How could I tell him and then leave again?” He shook his head. “No. I won't do that to him. To myself.”

Amanda reached out and ruffled his hair. Then she pulled his head towards her and kissed the top. 

“I understand. We'll lie low and hope for the best.” She smiled a little into his hair. “That was your advice, after all.”

***

Six weeks and two days. That was how long it had been since Peter had seen Noel Aiton. The further it was in the past, the more he convinced himself that he was imagining things. Amanda Montrose and Nick Wolfe had faked their deaths and resumed life under different identities. Noel Aiton just happened to look like Neal Caffrey. That was the sanest theory he could come up with.

Well. It was good enough as a working theory. He put Lyall Crawford under as much surveillance as he could (that was quite a bit; thank you, Patriot Act) since the man had admitted that he was in contact with Ms Louvel. He kept his ears pricked for anything untoward in Japan. Other than that, he worked other, minor cases. And, in his free time, he dug around for all the Amandas he could find in the records. He ran her and Crawford through facial recognition. Then he checked into every known associate of Crawford's, from the cleaning staff to his employer. 

Duncan Macleod, dojo owner and martial arts instructor, had been to Japan eight weeks ago. He'd procured two antique Japanese swords for his second business, an antique store. Peter felt his eyebrows rise– those must've been fun to get through Customs. Duncan Macleod looked a little well preserved for his alleged forty-seven years of age. Sure, there was a touch of grey around his temples, but not much in the way of lines on his face. Duncan Macleod also popped up in quite a few police investigations over the years. Break ins, robberies, murders. Many murders. And he'd posted bail for Amanda Montrose once. 

Peter breathed deep. This man had known Amanda Montrose, and now he was training Amanda Louvel's lover and had been to the same country the two of them had been to within the same time frame. This wasn't coincidence. 

Since the Bureau would frown on him if he expensed another flight across the country this soon and he didn't want to do it over the phone, he decided to try and dig up more information on Duncan Macleod first. 

It seemed Macleod had had an antique shop before, up until 1993, when his then-girlfriend was killed in a robbery. It was only recently that he'd gotten back into the antique business. And, possibly, the relationship business– he was living with a handsome young man in his twenties. Peter was in no position to judge, of course, considering his own dealings with a certain handsome young man. Still, Macleod appeared to be quite the character. However, apart from the sheer number of police investigations he'd been part of, usually as a witness, the electronic records weren't much help concerning him. Macleod's potential boyfriend was also squeaky clean. He owned a small book store chain with a branch in Seattle, purchased not long ago from the previous owner. All the paperwork was in order. 

At this point, Peter considered abandoning his fool's errant. He ought to go home and spend more time with his wife. People didn't come back from the dead, no matter how much he missed Neal. There was no miracle here, no Caffrey sleight of hand. Peter passed a hand across his eyes. God, he ached, ached for Neal. He'd thought the pain had dulled, the wound scabbed over. But meeting Noel Aiton seemed to have ripped it open again. Like phantom pain, he could hear Neal's laughter, could see his bright grin. He could imagine the exact way Neal's eyebrows would rise, the way the corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled, the intensity of his gaze darkened with lust and challenge. He could remember the way Neal's hair felt under his fingers, thick and rich, how it would curl around his fingers. He could remember the way Neal moved, all quick grace and easy confidence. He could remember the sound of Neal's voice and the warmth of his body and the possessive comfort of simply being around him and knowing Neal was his. 

Peter breathed deeply and wondered why he was torturing himself like this. Then he wondered whether he could conceivably fly to Japan and seduce a pretty young high-school teacher. Then he went back to work.


	4. Chapter 4

It was blind luck, really. Well, blind luck and the fact that he spent hours and hours combing through useless information about people named “Amanda” and “Duncan” that the search engines spit out. 

It was a circus poster. 

It advertised “the Amazing Amanda” and, smaller, “the Great Macleod”. There was a drawing of her, a pretty good one. 

The poster was from 1926. Someone was selling it for a hundred dollars on ebay. Peter bought it.

Then he sat back in his chair and breathed deeply and carefully for a little while. 

1926\. 1926. 

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck. 

He hadn't really believed he'd find evidence. Not deep down. Even right at this moment, his mind was scrambling for a rational explanation– any explanation but that Duncan Macleod and Amanda Louvel/Montrose were a hundred years old and hadn't changed a bit in that time. 

Clones? Yeah, Mozzie would be all over that. Vampires? Robots? How did it work? How many people did it concern?... Was Noel Aiton Neal Caffrey?

Peter decided to go home. Maybe he was hallucinating. Maybe the poster wouldn't look that convincing when he held it in his hands.

***

The poster, in fact, looked even more convincing when he held it in his hands. Also, he'd done some more reading on Macleod's police records. The man had been shot once in 1992– shot dead. In front of a camera. Peter requested the recording.

Then he removed all the time period filters on the multi search engine page and typed Duncan Macleod in there. 

“The Free Archive of Military Service Records” and “Soldiers of the Civil War” obliged. There was a paramedic by the name of Duncan Macleod with the British Red Cross during WW I, and the Confederate soldiers in the Civil War took a Duncan Macleod prisoner and executed him in August 1863.

Of course, there were no pictures. These people could be different Duncan Macleods. But maybe... maybe they weren't. Peter drummed his fingers on his desk for a moment, then turned back to the computer. He had a name, regiment, and dates now. Maybe there were pictures. Maybe someone had even digitized them. 

There was one of Macleod's paramedic squad. It was yellow with age, but Peter could still recognize Macleod quite clearly, sitting there in the front row. 

Peter saved the picture, and then printed it out, just to be on the safe side. 

When he received the video recording he'd requested three days later, he watched Macleod get shot in the back. The thing didn't have sound, and the quality was bad, but the man certainly twitched and folded like someone who'd just been shot dead. According to the report, Macleod walked out of that courthouse without a scratch on him. He'd been wearing a vest, he told the investigating policemen. Who wore a vest to, Peter checked the report, pay outstanding parking tickets? All but one of the attackers were dead– of stab wounds. The police labelled it as a falling out between the group, and honestly, it didn't sound like anyone had been inclined to investigate too deeply. The dead gunmen were found all over the fourth floor, each in a different location, each of them killed with a single, precise stab. To Peter, it sounded rather like someone had gone around and picked them off one by one. And Macleod just happened to be very proficient with a sword, if the reports and the surveillance pictures of him and Crawford training in Macleod's dojo were anything to go by. 

Come to think of it, Neal knew how to fence, didn't he? 

Peter tapped his chin. Okay. Okay. It appeared there were people who didn't age and had one hell of a life expectancy. Also, if they died, they came back. Peter had no idea how it worked, whether they were really invincible or whether it was just gunshots that didn't stick, but Duncan Macleod was one of them, and Amanda whatever-her-name-was and Nick Wolfe/Lyall Crawford. And maybe, Neal. 

Neal, alive. 

The surge of hope was almost more painful than the constant ache of loss. 

This was when Jones poked his head around the door to tell him that Hughes wanted to see him. 

Hughes, on Peter's arrival, waved him to a chair. 

“There's been a jewellery theft in Tokyo,” he informed Peter. 

Peter groaned. “Louvel?” 

“It's possible. Interpol and the locals are requesting your presence. Burke...” Hughes frowned at him for a moment. “Listen, I know you've been working hard, and you've been flying a lot lately, so if you want to handle this from here, that's fine by me.”

Peter thought about it for a moment. He hadn't been home enough lately. He was neglecting El, he knew he was. But... 

“I'll go,” he said before he could think too closely about his motives. 

Three hours later, he was on the plane again.

***

It turned out Amanda Louvel had nothing to do with the jewellery theft. Peter interviewed her, and she had a rock-solid alibi: she'd been shopping, and the mall was amply supplied with security cameras. It was very strange to talk to a woman he had reason to believe was over 80 years old, at least, yet looked like she could be his daughter.

Two days after he arrived, the stolen jewel turned up again. The locals took this in stride. Apparently, they had a local thief who was in the habit of staging outrageously elaborate heists (he had fans, for crying out loud!) and then returned whatever he stole after a few days. No one knew why he did this. Apparently, he also usually sent advance notices with clues to his target and the time and date of the robbery. Peter just stared at young Hakuba, who was explaining this to him solemnly. Advance notices?! 

The locals were very sorry to have called him across half the world for nothing, but the notice seemed to have gotten lost in the mail. The Kaitou KID sent his apologies as well, via note attached to the returned jewel. 

Peter just nodded slowly. He quite suddenly considered himself lucky. At least his thief didn't have mobs of screaming fans attending his crimes. And reporters. Camera crews. _Camera crews_. Also, Neal had never pranced across the roofs in a white suit, cape, top hat and a freaking monocle. No, Neal seemed rather traditional and sane, all of a sudden. 

He also received a phone call from Jones that day. Someone had broken into his office. Someone had killed one of the cleaning staff and disguised themselves in the man's clothes. The security cameras showed that he'd entered Peter's office, rifled through his desk and drawers, and made himself busy with Peter's computer. The tech guys confirmed that he'd hacked Peter's account and copied Peter's hard drive. Then he'd left the same way he'd come. 

Peter swore into the phone. He was ready to hop onto the next plane back home, but apparently, Hughes actually wanted him to stay a few days longer. It was Thursday, and they'd booked him on a plane on Monday. There was the possibility that this was personal, that someone was after Peter, and they figured he was safer halfway around the world. El was staying at her best friend's for the next few days, and Jones promised that there'd be extra patrols around Peter's neighbourhood. Also, Hughes wanted him to use the time and relax for a few days while they investigated the break-in. 

Peter grumbled, but eventually gave in. Probably, he gave in easier than he normally would have. A few extra days in Japan meant he could go to Kyoto. 

Which was what he did.


	5. Chapter 5

It wasn't easy, but he found the school Noel/Neal was teaching at. It really would help Peter's cause a lot if people in this country spoke understandable English. And drove on the right side of the road. And if Kyoto's streets weren't so damn narrow. 

But he managed to arrive with plenty of time to spare until school started at 8:30 on Friday morning, and settled in. Yes, so he was stalking. It was only until Monday, anyway. No, he didn't consider that a reasonable excuse. He ought to arrest himself. Then again, considering the state of anti-stalking laws in Japan, sitting in a car outside someone's work place probably didn't count (yes, he'd looked it up). 

Neal (Noel) arrived around eight, on foot. He looked young and delectable and very proper in his dark suit, simple white shirt, black tie, a slim briefcase in his left hand. He wasn't even wearing a hat. 

He entered the school gates, cheerfully greeted a few early students, who laughed and waved and giggled, and vanished inside the building. 

It was a long wait while the sun crept across the sky. Peter reviewed some files he'd brought with him, dozed with eyes half closed, went and got a sandwich from a nearby supermarket for lunch, and tried to stop calling the young man in the building ahead “Neal” in his head. As of yet, all evidence was circumstantial. Well, apart from where they looked the same. 

Finally, the bell rang to announce the end of classes for the day and students poured out of the building in loud, chattering droves. They were slow to disperse, many of them stopping to chat with each other or a teacher for a little longer. So there were still plenty of students and a few teachers around when Neal (NOEL) appeared. He was as cheerful as he'd been in the morning, and stopped to talk to a group of girls. His quick, bright smile flashed across his face, and the students laughed with him. Amazingly enough, from their body language and expressions, they appeared only a little smitten and rather comfortable with him. 

Neal (Noel) said his good-byes to the students after a few moments, bowed to a fellow teacher with Japanese ease, and exited the school gates. He waved to the calls of a few more students, looked right, then left, and crossed into the street just a couple of feet from the nose of Peter's rental.

There was a screech of tires, Neal turned his head, and a car smacked into him with a thick, meaty sound. Neal's body flew through the air like a rag doll, and the car sped off. Neal landed on the pavement in a heap.

***

Oh god, no. Oh god, not again. Peter sat frozen, and for a moment it didn't matter that he was pretty sure that this was Neal and that he could come back from the dead.

For a moment, he was sure this was Neal and he'd lost him again. 

The first student screamed, and the teachers came running. Some other students started filming and taking pictures with their phones. A neighbour across the road poked his head out the window. 

It felt like forever as Peter sat there, shaking, eyes on the body on the pavement, but he was sure it was an impressively short amount of time until an ambulance arrived, and the EMTs converged on Neal's still form. One of them took Neal's pulse, then shouted. They slapped an oxygen mask on him, a neck brace, moved him to a stretcher, while one of them talked earnestly with the teachers. They loaded him into the ambulance just as sirens approached from the other direction, and then they sped of, their own siren wailing. Peter followed them, rather than stay around and answer the questions of the police. 

Halfway to the hospital, the ambulance turned off its siren and finished the ride sedately. Apparently, there was no need for hurry anymore. 

Peter swallowed around a lump in his throat and attempted to loosen his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. 

The ambulance drove around the corner of the hospital building, and they unloaded a still shape on the stretcher, covered with a sheet, directly to what must be the morgue entrance. 

Peter parked where he could keep an eye on both the main and the morgue entrances and tried to get a grip on his breathing and his rapidly beating heart.

***

Minutes went by like hours. Peter breathed, drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, tried to find some equilibrium between anguished hope and new-old despair.

A familiar figure in a black suit strode out of the morgue entrance. His steps weren't entirely steady, but he made a good show of pretending he belonged right where he was and knew where he was going. His shirt looked dark from across the street. 

For a moment, Peter just stared as the man reached the pavement and determinately joined the light foot traffic. 

Peter wasn't quite sure what he felt at that very moment. Which meant he was probably in shock. Understandable, really. Circumstantial evidence was one thing. Seeing a man who'd just been hit by a car walk out of a hospital morgue was something else. 

Neal (it had to be Neal) turned his head, looked over his shoulder. He lengthened his stride a bit. He was almost at the next crossroads. Peter started the car, pulled out into traffic. 

Following a person on foot with a car wasn't the easiest of exercises, especially with someone as wary as Neal. Luckily, the Japanese were far more civilized drivers than the average New Yorker. 

So Peter turned at the crossing and drove on to the next traffic light, which, luckily, was red. He stopped and watched in the rear view mirror as Neal rounded the corner. As soon as he had, he broke into a jog. The traffic light was changing when Neal glanced over his shoulder again. A man, too tall and broad-shouldered for your average Japanese male, came around the corner Neal was coming from. He was wearing a baseball cap, sunglasses and one of those masks the Japanese were fond of wearing over their mouth and nose when they had a cold. Altogether, he made for a very suspicious character. Neal, apparently, thought so too, because he ducked into the entrance of a shopping arcade and broke into an outright run just as someone honked at Peter from behind him. 

Peter drove on, hurried around the block, and arrived in time to see Neal running towards him. He stepped on the brakes and pushed the passenger door open. 

“Come on, get in,” he called, leaning down and over so Neal could see him. 

For once, he had the pleasure of seeing Neal utterly, completely flummoxed. He stared at Peter with big eyes, blinked, blinked again, opened his mouth, closed it, and then threw another look over his shoulder and scrambled into the passenger seat. 

“Agent Burke,” he said in Aiton's crisp accent as Peter pulled out into traffic. “What a surprise.”

Peter gave him a Look. Close up, it was obvious that Neal's shirt was dark with drying blood. 

“I'd say Noel Aiton is about as dead as Neal Caffrey, don't you think?” Peter asked pointedly. Neal's face did something complicated, wary, surprised and curious all at the same time and apparently unable to decide what expression to settle on. Then he went neutral, expressionless. 

“Where do you want me to take you?” Peter asked into the stretching silence. 

For the rest of the ride, Neal gave him sparse directions until they stopped in front of a modest apartment building. He dropped the British accent.

“So, what's the plan?” Peter asked once he'd put the car in park. 

“I need to get a few things from my apartment,” Neal answered. “After that... I guess we'll see.”

Peter nodded agreeably. “Let's go, then.”

The look Neal gave him was narrow-eyed, wary. Peter answered it blankly. If Neal thought Peter was going to let him out of his sight for even a second, he had another thing coming. He ought to know Peter better. 

Apparently he did, because he gave a shallow nod before he looked around, and slipped out of the car. Peter followed, and they quickly took the steps up to apartment number 21. 

Neal seemed to listen for a moment, then he unlocked the door and stepped inside, leaving the door open for Peter to follow. 

It was a small, modest apartment. Peter saw a glimpse of a bathroom through a door leading off the narrow hallway. In what appeared to be pure habit, Neal had stepped out of his shoes at the little step all the Japanese houses had between the entrance and the rest of the living area. Soundless in his stocking feet, Neal walked into the main room and slid the door of a closet back. 

Peter cast a look around. There was a kitchenette along one wall, a TV, a desk, glass doors leading to a small balcony, a low table in the middle of the room and a few cushions on the floor. It was rather a far shot from the sort of accommodation Peter was used to from Neal. 

Neal pulled out a duffel bag from the bottom of the closet, opened the zipper a little to peek inside, then closed it again. He set it down on the floor and leaned back into the closet. Something gave a soft clatter, and he resurfaced with a small wooden box and a long, cloth-wrapped bundle. 

“Okay,” he said as he gained his feet again. “Let's go.”

Trust Neal to be prepared to run at a moment's notice. 

Peter nodded, picked up the duffel bag and followed Neal back to the door. Neal stuck his head out, made sure that no one was around, and stepped out. They quickly made their way back to the car. Neal had just pulled the door shut and was in the middle of putting on his seatbelt when he suddenly sat up straight, eyes scanning the parking lot. 

“Peter,” he said, and despite the fact that his voice was flat and tense, Peter felt a small shiver at the sound of his name rolling off Neal's tongue. “Get us out of here. Now.”

Peter put the car in gear and reversed out of the parking lot. As he turned into the road, he saw the figure of the tall, disguised man in the rear view mirror, a few yards down the street on the side walk. He turned his head, light glinting off his sunglasses as he tracked their car. 

“Where do you want me to go?” Peter asked as he alternately kept his eye on the road and their pursuer, now standing on the side walk and watching them drive off. 

Neal thought for a moment. “Ginkakuji Temple is close. Take the next right.”

Peter drove, while Neal dragged his duffel bag from the back seat Peter had thrown it on and pulled out a fresh shirt. He changed quickly while directing Peter to the temple. Peter kept his eyes very determinately on the road. 

They reached the temple and Peter had to circle around the block to find a parking lot. Neal had his foot out the door almost before they had stopped moving. Peter didn't think he'd ever seen Neal this tense, this... scared. He wasn't bothering with smiles and charm and jokes. He wasn't even exuding his usual confidence. Instead, his eyes kept scanning as he bent to collect his things from the back seat. He wasn't panting, or sweating, or wide-eyed with fear. But his movements were too controlled, too urgent, too far from his usual easy grace. The set of his jaw was too firm, his lips pale. 

Peter quickly locked the car and followed Neal as he strode towards the temple entrance. He couldn't help but brush his hand over the reassuring bulk of his gun in his shoulder holster. 

They passed a few houses, and then the gate of the temple grounds rose in front of them. Neal all but ran through it. As soon as he'd passed under it, his shoulders relaxed and Peter actually heard him breathe a sigh of relief. His entire body settled back into his easy, familiar lines. 

They were in a rectangular sort of yard, with a sand path and trees and a bamboo fence at the sides. Another gate towered at the other end of it, the ticket booth next to it. 

“I take it we won't need to pay the entrance fee?” Peter asked dryly. 

Neal turned, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “No, we're fine here.”

Peter stepped into the shade of a tree and leaned back against the trunk, crossed his arms over his chest. He ignored the looks he was getting from the few Japanese tourists nearby. Maybe you weren't supposed to lean against trees in Japan. Or maybe it was just because he was a foreigner. He couldn't say he cared– it was really rather hot out in the sun. 

“So,” he said and fixed a stare on Neal. “Mind telling me what's going on?”

Neal met his eyes with a very familiar expression of caution almost hidden behind good cheer. 

“Okay,” he agreed peaceably, “what do you want to know?”

God, where to start? Peter thought for a moment. “How old are you?”

Neal blinked, eyebrows rising in surprise. It appeared that wasn't the question he'd expected. Then he smiled, a little sly, that smile he got when he was pleased by something Peter did or said. He shrugged, the casualness of it teasingly fake. “About eight hundred and sixty. Or something thereabouts.” He made a throw-away gesture with his hand. 

Peter gave a long, slow blink and felt his eyebrows rise as he looked at the young man standing in front of him, sun in his hair. 

“Okay,” he said slowly. “What are you?”

Neal cocked his head, shrugged again, more genuinely this time. He opened his mouth to reply, then snapped it shut again, tense again, as he turned to face the entrance gate. 

“Company,” he said quietly. 

“So why are we just waiting here?” Peter wanted to know. Neal shot him a quick look. 

“Holy ground. He can't do anything to me on holy ground.”

Peter frowned, but Neal appeared completely serious. Okay. Holy ground. Peter fleetingly reconsidered the vampire theory. 

Then their mysterious follower appeared at the temple gate. He scanned the yard, caught sight of them, and strode right over. Neal stood his ground. 

“Who are you and what do you want?” he asked, voice cool. 

“Now, now,” the man answered, voice deep and condescending and just as British as Neal's former accent. “Don't tell me you've forgotten me, Colin.”

Neal hissed out a sharp breath and leaned away from the man, just a little. “Andrew.” His voice was flat. 

“Who else?” the man answered, and pulled off his sunglasses and the mask. The hair peeking out from under the baseball cap was gold blond, his eyes almost as blue as Neal's. His features were strong and very handsome. He was about an inch taller still than Peter, and did a good job of looming over Neal. His body language was aggressive, and Peter didn't at all like the way this guy was looking Neal up and down. 

“Don't tell me you thought you could outrun me,” Andrew said, still with that heavy condescension in his voice. 

Neal took half a step back, crossed his arms across his chest. “I've told you before, Andrew, it's over. We're done, finished, I don't want to see you again.”

Andrew laughed. “Oh, yes, that's right. So you've said.” He took a menacing step closer to Neal. “I just have to wonder what gave you the impression that that was your choice to make. Did you forget? I make the rules. You shut your mouth and obey. So, enough with this charming little game of cat and mouse. You're coming with me, now, and maybe, I'll go easy on your punishment.” He smiled. “Maybe. Then again, you like being punished, don't you, Colin? Everything is arranged, I've got new papers for you. So be a good boy and come along now.”

Neal took another step back. “No.”

Andrew's eyes narrowed threateningly. “What did you say?”

Neal's chin went up a fraction. “No. I said no, Andrew. I'm not playing. The two of us, you and me,” Neal gestured back and forth between them, “over.”

Andrew took another threatening step towards Neal, and Peter's hand twitched towards his holster. Neal stood his ground. Andrew's eyes flicked towards Peter, and Peter knew that he was looking at a killer. There was something very cold, very empty in Andrew's eyes. 

“Is this about him? Really, Colin? A mortal? Don't tell me you've gone conventional.”

Neal glared. “Leave him alone.”

Andrew's eyebrows shot up. “What's this? Don't tell me you actually care? My, my, Colin.” He chuckled, darkly. “Does he know what a thieving little slut you are?” Peter could see a flicker of an expression on Neal's face, a tightening around his eyes, a twitch of his lips. Andrew saw it as well and pressed his advantage. “No? Does he know that every word out of your pretty mouth is a lie? Does he know that you'll stab him in the back the first chance you get? Does he know how you'll beg to be put in your place with a big cock up your arse?”

Peter had a really very strong urge to shoot the guy in the face. Neal's lips pressed together. 

“Well, I'll make you a deal,” Andrew continued. “You come with me now and I won't make you watch when I slit him open crotch to throat.”

Neal went very still. His voice was quiet as he said, “Andrew. Don't.”

“What?” Andrew snapped, mood abruptly furious. “You think I'm just going to let this slide? You think I'll just let you spread your legs for a bloody mortal and make a fool of me?!”

“Andrew. Don't threaten him. Please.”

Andrew sneered. “Oh, look here, there's what you do so well. Begging. It won't do you any good with me, as you should know. I'll have you back, and I'll kill him, and there's nothing you can do about it.”

“Please. Please don't.” Neal's voice was cracking, shifting into genuine pleading. “Just leave. Just turn around and go. Please, Andrew.”

“Go?” Andrew sounded incredulous. “And why, pray tell, would I do that?”

Neal looked up at the man with big, pleading blue eyes. “Because I'll challenge you if you don't.”

Andrew looked genuinely surprised for a moment. Then he broke into disbelieving laughter, attracting a few looks from the passing tourists. 

“You? You, Colin? You'll challenge me?”

“I think you're forgetting who your teacher was,” Neal said sharply. 

Andrew waved it off. “You haven't taken a head in three hundred years, Colin.”

“You know very well I don't like to kill. That doesn't mean I'm incapable of it.”

“Ah, yes. So squeamish. It's always been one of your more endearing qualities. Very well. I'll meet this challenge of yours. Oh, don't worry,” Andrew flashed a patronising smile at Neal, “I won't try to take your head. I much prefer you alive. Of course, should you lose you'll be returning to your proper place. And I will make you watch when I break your mortal toy.”

“Andrew...”

“So name your time and place, then.” Andrew stared down at Neal. Neal swallowed, closed his eyes for a moment, and swallowed again. 

“Maruyama Park,” he finally said. “Tonight, eleven.”

“Agreed.” Andrew smiled down at Neal, eyes greedy. “I'll see you tonight. Oh, and Colin? Don't try and run. I know where your mortal lives. I know where he works, too.”

“You,” Peter said without quite meaning to. “You're the one who broke into my office.”

Andrew grinned at him. “But of course, Agent Burke.” Peter's title was a mockery on his lips. “Thank you for doing so much of my work for me. And do greet your wife from me. Whatever would she say if she knew the things you do with our sweet Colin here?” He didn't wait for an answer– which Peter had no intention of giving, anyway. 

“I shall see you tonight, Colin.” He put his sunglasses back on as he turned and walked away. Neal watched his retreating back, and only relaxed a few long moments after Andrew had passed through the gate and vanished from sight. 

He turned and looked at Peter. 

“So,” Peter said. “An old boyfriend I take it?”

Neal sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and nodded. Peter felt his eyebrows rise. 

“What?” Neal said, then relented. “Okay, okay. Sometimes I have very bad judgement when it comes to men.”

Peter snorted. “I should say so. What were you thinking?”

Neal pouted at him. It was very understated, but it was definitely a pout. Peter wanted to kiss him. “Look, you know what I like. Do you know how hard it is to find a good dom? Even today? And three hundred years ago, merely sleeping with a man was enough to get you arrested. Can you imagine how difficult that makes it to find someone, never mind someone to have an even more exotic relationship with?”

Peter made a noise of grudging acknowledgement. 

“Also...” Neal continued quietly, “he wasn't always like this, Peter. He was... He was fun. He was easygoing and a bit wild, but he was always laughing, and he got into fights, but he hadn't ever killed anyone. Maybe I should've seen it,” Neal admitted. “Maybe I should have seen that he liked fighting a bit too much, that he was rarely kind, that power play was more than just a game for him. But I didn't.” He gave Peter a helpless look. “I might be eight hundred years old, but that doesn't make me infallible.”

“Yeah, about that,” Peter said and narrowed his eyes at Neal. “Let's get out of here, and then I want answers.”

Neal looked resigned as he agreed.


	6. Chapter 6

“So,” Peter said as he sprawled himself out on the couch in his hotel room. “I think it's time you told me your name.”

Neal draped himself into an armchair, crossed one leg over the other and folded his hands in his lap. He smiled. “You know my name.”

Peter snorted. “Sure. Which one is it, then? Neal? Noel? Colin? Or maybe George, or Nick, or Gary? Or any of your other half dozen identities?”

“It is Neal, actually.”

Peter blinked in surprise. “Really?”

“Yes. I was born Neal, son of Neal, on the west coast of Ireland in the Year Of Our Lord 1134.”

He sketched a bow, melodramatic and mocking, from where he was sitting. 

“Neal, son of Neal, huh?” Peter repeated, but didn't give him a chance to answer. “Okay then. Explain to me how it works.”

Neal raised his eyebrows in question and Peter gave him a sharp look. “You know what I mean.”

“Oh, very well,” Neal conceded. “We call ourselves Immortals. We don't age, we don't get sick, we come back to life if we're killed.”

“That sounds like a pretty sweet deal,” Peter observed. “How do you get to be immortal? Where do you come from?”

Neal shrugged. “No one knows, actually. We're always foundlings.”

Peter nodded slowly. “So what's the downside?”

“Besides seeing your friends age and die while you go on? We can't have children. And...” Neal sighed. “And there's the Game, of course.”

“Game? What sort of game?”

“There can be only one,” Neal quoted. “When one Immortal kills another, he absorbs his power, some say his soul. We call it a Quickening. The lore says that the last Immortal standing will receive some sort of reward. No one really knows what it is– power, mortality...” Neal shrugged. “Everyone has their speculations, but no one really knows.”

“So... you can be killed.”

Neal didn't look particularly comfortable with that question, but he nodded. “Beheading. That's the only way.”

“And when you go out tonight, that's what you're going to try to do to Andrew– cut his head off.” Peter heard his voice come out sharp, unhappy. 

Neal nodded again. “Yes. That's what I'm going to try to do. Look, it's not as if I like it,” he snapped. “I try to stay out of the Game. I run whenever I can. But you heard Andrew. He'll come after you, and he might come after El, too. And I don't fancy playing his boy toy until he gets himself killed. It could be decades, it could be centuries. No.” Neal shook his head and his expression was as stubborn as Peter had ever seen it. “He's my mess. I'll clean it up.”

“Even if it means you'll be killing a man.” Peter couldn't help but hate the thought of Neal as a killer. One of the things he had always liked about Neal was the fact that, no matter how much of a criminal he was, he wasn't violent. “He broke into my office and he killed a man to do it. I ought to arrest him.”

The look Neal gave him could only be called patronising. “Yeah, good luck with that. He'll just commit suicide and walk out of the morgue.”

Peter pinched the bridge of his nose. Yes, there was that. Obviously, these guys didn't play by the rules– some of the most fundamental rules of human existence didn't apply to them.

“So, what you're telling me is that there's a bunch of people out there who whack each other's heads off because of some old wives tale.”

Neal nodded. “Yep, that's pretty much it.”

“Does that sound just a little crazy to you? I mean,” Peter gestured, “there you are, immortal, the thing people have been dreaming about since forever, and instead of enjoying the ride, you kill each other for some mythical reason no one is even sure about?”

Neal smiled, just a little. “I know. Hey, you're preaching to the choir. I'm no fan of the Game. But some believe in it, and quite a few Immortals just go crazy. You live long enough, bad things happen to you, and not everyone can handle it. Some get dangerous, and killing them really is the only way to stop them.”

Peter looked at him, and for a moment, just a moment, he could see the age in Neal's eyes. He almost asked about the bad things that had happened to him, but then decided he wasn't quite ready to know. He sighed, crossed his arms across his chest, and frowned at the man sitting across from him. 

“So. You're you. You were alive all this time, and you didn't come back. You didn't tell me.” Peter was proud of how even he managed to keep his voice. He wanted to shout, to rage, or maybe he wanted to cry, or just throw himself at Neal and kiss him and touch him, run his hands all over him and feel him warm and breathing and alive.

Whatever he kept out of his voice, his face obviously betrayed, because Neal slumped, just a little. He looked honestly miserable, as far as Peter could tell. 

“Peter...” he said, and the plea in his voice broke Peter's fucking heart, again, then and there. Neal took a deep breath. “Can we not talk about this right now? Please?”

Peter had to look away, because the emotions were there, in his head and in his mouth and in his throat and chest and stomach, roiling, confusing, and he if he kept looking at Neal right now, he would lose control. 

“The last person I told was Andrew,” Neal said, voice so quiet, so small. “You saw how that turned out.”

It was an apology, of sorts. Peter nodded, short and sharp, but he kept his head turned away. 

“I could've let him go,” Neal continued, still so softly. “He was a pre-Immortal when I met him. We can always tell, but he had no idea. If I'd let him live his life... maybe he would've grown old and died in peace. We can, you know?” Peter didn't know, but it was clearly a rhetorical question, Neal's voice wistful. “We can live a perfectly normal, mortal life– as long as we don't die a violent death. It's only after First Death that we stop ageing. So I could've let Andrew go. I could've just not told him, taken what years we would've had and left him before he noticed I wasn't changing. But I didn't. I didn't want to lose him. Not if I didn't have to. So I told him, about me and about himself. He was ecstatic. 'You and me,' he told me, 'you and me, forever.' And he convinced me to kill him, my sword through his heart, in bed. He trusted me that much. And we were good together, Peter.” Peter risked a glance at him, to find Neal with his eyes closed, head leaned back against the upholstery of the chair. “Twenty-six years, twenty-six amazing years. I taught him everything I knew about surviving, found him teachers for the sword-fighting. We took care of each other.”

Neal dropped his head and met Peter's eyes. 

“I thought we were perfect for each other. And then he started killing people. First it was self-defence. Then he went head-hunting.” Neal shrugged. “A lot of young Immortals get a phase of that at one point or another. I didn't like it, but it wasn't really any of my business. And then he killed a mortal, a woman, for being in the way. He didn't understand why I was upset. 'She's just a mortal', he said. 'She would've died soon anyway.' I wouldn't let it go. He tried to pass it off as a joke, as a game, tried to turn it into our normal dom/sub play. I safe worded, I told him I was serious, I told him I couldn't be with him if he was like that. That made him truly mad. Things escalated, and I learned the hard way that he didn't respect my safe word, didn't respect our rules. Apparently, safe words were for mortals as far as he was concerned. So I killed him and ran.”

“But you didn't kill him kill him,” Peter stated. 

Neal shook his head. “Knife to the heart. I couldn't bring myself to take his head while he was out, and I was in no state for a duel. I took off and got as much distance between him and me as I could.” A wry smile flickered across his face for a moment. “All the way to the United States. Of course, they were still colonies back then.”

Yes. Of course they were. Peter was going to need some time to wrap his head around this whole “Neal is eight hundred years old” business. 

“Trust you to take 'bad break-up' to a whole new level,” Peter finally said, and was rewarded with a weak smile. 

They sat for a while in silence, until Neal eventually got up and reached for the long, wrapped bundle. He retrieved a little bag from his duffel and took his seat again. He placed the little bag on the table and flipped it open to reveal a dull, grey whetstone, a cloth and a container of fluid. Then he pulled away the wrapping from the bundle in his lap. It was a sword, slim, silver, lethal. The evening light danced along its edges and pooled red in the two grooves running along most of the blade. The cross guard, hilt and pommel were simple and functional. Neal inspected it with a critical eye, flipping it over a few times. Then he set the whetstone out on the table and went to one knee in front of it. He proceeded to sharpen the sword with even, measured strokes against the stone, hypnotic and practised. 

Peter couldn't help but watch Neal's hands on the weapon, the delicacy and familiarity of his fingers on steel. Old, Peter thought. The hands of a man who had grown up with swords, had grown up in a time when they weren't a romantically-tinged relic from an almost mythical past. 

Peter couldn't really imagine it. He couldn't imagine eight-hundred years. He couldn't imagine the reality of the Middle Ages, of the United States while they were colonies, of the Civil War. 

Neal was still Neal. He couldn't imagine the things Neal had seen, the times he had lived in, but he still knew this man. He knew those dark curls, tinged with gold, he knew every curve and angle of Neal's face, he could read his posture, his motions, the set of his shoulders. He knew the expressions on his face, knew those blue, blue eyes. It still felt like Neal was his. Temporarily misplaced, momentarily distanced, yes, but at the end of the day, his. 

Neal flicked his eyes up for a moment, met Peter's, then returned his attention to his sword. If he was bothered by Peter's unapologetic staring, he didn't show any sign of it. Peter didn't think he was bothered.

***

Night fell, and Neal finished sharpening his sword. He did a few practise swings, graceful and fluent, like moves in a dance. Then he wrapped the sword back up and set it aside, cleaned his supplies up. He took a shower. Peter ordered them dinner. They ate quietly. Afterwards, Peter pulled out his files to distract himself. Neal pulled a book from his duffel. It was in Japanese, but evidently that was no obstacle to Neal.

When it was time to go, Peter picked up the car keys and Neal picked up his sword. 

“You don't have to come,” he said quietly. 

“I'm coming,” Peter answered. Neal held his eyes for a moment, then dropped his glance, dipped his head the smallest fraction. Then he looked at the duffel bag, hesitated, and looked at Peter again. Peter gave him a look that dared him to pick it up. Neal left it where it was and preceded him out of the hotel room. Just before they left the room, he slid the sword under his jacket. 

Peter stared. That– shouldn't be possible. That jacket only reached Neal's hips. It was well-fitted, too. There was no way a sword fit under there. Peter decided not to ask. Evidently there were more ways in which the normal laws of life didn't apply to Immortals.

***

The park was a shifting mix of light and shadow. The wind rustled in the trees and drowned out the noise of the city around them, the silhouettes of leafy branches danced in front of the lamps along the broad paths. They found Andrew waiting under one of those lamps in a secluded corner of the park, the light gleaming in his light hair, throwing his face into shadow.

Neal pulled his sword, and at a look from him, Peter fell back a little. 

“If I lose,” Neal said quietly, while they were still out of earshot, “shoot him, then cut his head off.”

Peter wanted to protest. He was a member of law enforcement. He had no business killing anyone in cold blood. But... rules didn't apply to Andrew. And he was a threat to El. 

He nodded curtly, then said: “Don't lose.” Even if that meant Neal would be killing the man.

He could see the shadow of a smile on Neal's lips in the uncertain light. 

Neal stopped at the edge of the circle of light on the pavement. 

“Andrew.”

“Colin.” Andrew's voice sounded like the rumble of a big, self-satisfied cat. “You came.”

“Did you think I wouldn't?”

Andrew chuckled, low and mocking. “Running is far more your style. You must really care about these mortals.”

“So what if I do?” Neal's voice was cool, maybe cooler than Peter had ever heard it. 

“Ah, Colin... You know you can't keep them. They'll soon be old and ugly, and then they'll die. A few seasons, and they're gone. You and me, Colin... we have eternity.”

“I'll pass, thanks.”

“Fine.” Andrew sounded less amused now. “If you won't listen to reason...” He stepped forward, pulled a sword from... somewhere. He raised it, fitted both hands around the grip, and the light gleamed of the sharp point directed at Neal. 

Neal raised his own blade, one handed. It looked suddenly rather fragile next to Andrew's wide, solid two-handed weapon. 

They started to circle each other, careful, measured steps, eyes locked. They prowled like cats, and Peter felt as if they'd forgotten him. 

He hadn't seen this side of Neal before, this quiet danger gleaming in his eyes in the half-light, cold and sleek like the steel in his hand. Laughing, teasing, smug, scheming, angry, scared... all of those he'd seen and more, but not this. 

It made him worried, worried about Neal and for Neal. It also made him hard. 

Neal suddenly darted forward, his sword like quicksilver, and then he was falling back again, his sword just grazing along Andrew's counter stroke with a soft ring of metal on metal. 

Andrew grinned wolfishly, and attacked. 

Despite his size and that of his sword, he was fast, fast and forceful. Neal ducked most of his swipes, backed up, circled around, evaded, back and forth across the path. Peter felt his breath catch at how close that blade whistled by him at times. If one of those slashes connected... 

All of a sudden, both of them stopped, stood just like they had at the beginning. The sound of their breathing was just barely audible above the chirping of the cicadas. 

“If you give up, I'll let you leave,” Neal said quietly. 

Andrew only snorted derisively, and then he attacked again. 

Metal clashed as Neal blocked, twisted, lashed out. Andrew jumped back, brought his blade down in a savage chop. Neal ducked to the side at the last moment. 

That last round, Peter understood, had only been the warm-up, the testing-out. Now the fight was fierce, fast, vicious. It wasn't like the sword fighting you saw in the movies. They weren't banging their blades together until one of them lost their grip. No, their swords were seeking for arms and legs and sides, for the vulnerable parts, for soft skin to pierce and main blood vessels to cut. They were fighting to wound, to disable, to kill. Occasionally, an edge rang against the flat of the other blade, but most of the time, they twisted and ducked and whirled out of the way. 

It looked like a dance, a violent, primal dance. 

They were fighting closely together, because Neal kept pressing and pressing– to take advantage of his shorter, faster sword, Peter assumed. But Andrew had shortened his grip, had one hand below the cross piece and the other above it, on a blunt section of his blade, and he wasn't giving Neal any quarter. 

“Please, Andrew,” Neal panted, “please stop this. Please don't make me kill you.”

Andrew barked a derisive laugh, and Peter hated to agree– but it didn't really look like he was losing. Andrew turned and shouldered into Neal, and just for a second, Neal was off-balance. It was enough. That big sword came down, caught Neal across the chest and stomach. Neal staggered back. The fabric of his jacket and shirt was torn, but Peter couldn't tell how bad it was, not with the uncertain light. 

Andrew pressed his advantage, bore down on Neal, and this time he clearly had the upper hand. Neal was defending more, retreating, trying and failing to find his footing again. If Andrew had been trying to kill him, Peter wasn't at all sure that he wouldn't already have succeeded. 

But true to his word, he wasn't trying to kill Neal– he was trying to beat him up. The flat of his blade smacked against Neal's thigh, sent him staggering again. The next swing hit Neal's shoulder, again with the flat. Neal was backing up, trying to get away, but Andrew's hands were behind the cross piece again and his reach was too long. 

Neal looked up at him, something like desperation in his face in the light from the lamps. 

“Please! Please don't make me do this!”

Andrew grinned, lifted his sword, point towards his left shoulder to take another savage swing– and then, like one of Neal's coin tricks, like magic, there was the gleam of steel in his left hand, and he was there, so close to Andrew they could've kissed, and his hand thrust.

Andrew gurgled, choked, his arms faltered, his entire body faltered, and it looked like the only thing keeping him upright was Neal's hand on the dagger under his ribs. 

“I always keep a back-up knife,” Neal murmured. “Remember?” 

Andrew's eyes were wide with pain, with confusion, with shock. Neal let go of the dagger. And as Andrew slumped to his knees, Neal brought his sword around in an arc, a sharp, bright comet tail of steel aimed at Andrew's neck. 

There was surprisingly little blood. The bounce of Andrew's severed head was sure to feature in Peter's nightmares, but at least there wasn't any slasher-movie style fountain of red. Peter's attention, however, was on Neal, who slumped to his knees, the point of his sword against the stones, his hands folded over the pommel, his head bowed. Peter was just about to hurry over to him, to check on him, to make sure he was okay, when the first serpentine flicker of lighting wound across the ground. It crackled up the sword, and Neal twitched while Peter took a startled step back. 

The air smelled charged, heavy. Another flicker of white light darted across the ground between Andrew's body and Neal, arced along the sword, then another, and another... And then a huge bolt of lighting jumped the distance and framed Neal in a halo of white fire for a fraction of a second. Neal's head fell back, mouth open, eyes staring up at the black night sky. Peter stumbled back, and back, and back, as bolt after bolt hammered home, hammered into Neal's body, crackling and rumbling with thunder, almost drowning out Neal's anguished scream as he knelt in a shifting, flickering cage of power that lit up the night. Stray tongues licked out to run up the near-by trees, struck the lamps in showers of glass and sparks, danced along a stone lantern. 

For a minute, two, the night was alive with power. 

Then, the dark and the quiet returned. Even the cicadas had stopped their chirping. Neal's rough breath was the only sound in the silence. 

That, Peter realized with a jolt, could not continue for long. There was no way this spectacle hadn't been witnessed, that there wasn't police or the fire department on their way. He hurried over, crouched down, rested his hands on Neal's slumped shoulders. 

Neal leaned into him heavily, his hands slipped off the sword. He was still breathing hard, with soft hitches, like the softest of suppressed sobs. Peter's arms wrapped around him tighter, pulled him closer, without thought. His clothes were cool to the touch, but Neal was warm, warm and heavy and solid pressed to his chest. 

Peter was unable to do anything but hold him, breathe him in, for a moment. Then he collected the shreds of his self-control around himself, steeled his spine and focused his mind. He rested a hand on the back of Neal's neck, squeezed until Neal looked up.

“Neal.” Neal's eyes were glassy. “We need to get out of here.” 

Neal blinked, then nodded, pulled himself together visibly. He drew away from Peter, took a deep breath, and pushed to his feet. He collected his sword and stepped over to Andrew's body. Peter had the urge to draw him away, to shield him from the sight, but Neal was certainly old enough to handle it (oh, was he ever...). He wiped his blade on Andrew's clothes, calmly, then made it vanish into his (ruined) suit jacket again. He looked over his shoulder at Peter. 

“I could use some help.”

Which was how Peter ended up carrying a dead body to his rental car and dumping it into the trunk. Then they drove to a nearby building. A police car passed them, heading the way they'd just come from. The building Neal had him park in front of and then proceeded to break into was a funeral home. They had an incinerator. 

About an hour later, all traces of Andrew were gone except for his sword, and Peter drove back to his hotel, a silent Neal slumped into the seat beside him.


	7. Chapter 7

Peter looked up from where he'd been frowning at his clasped hands, seated on the sofa, when Neal stepped out of his en-suite for the second time on this long, long day. 

Neal hadn't re-dressed. He was wearing the Japanese robe-thing the hotel room had come with and which Peter had so far ignored. Neal wore it with ease. Peter felt his mouth go dry. 

Neal's feet were bare against the carpet, the belted robe emphasized his long legs and slim waist, and the blue fabric turned his eyes the most amazing, intense shade. His hair fell into his face in wet, dark curls. He looked ridiculously pretty, and also about twenty years old. He held himself very still, met Peter's eyes across the room. He was outwardly calm, but Peter could see the tension in his shoulders, his spine. Peter could see the question in his eyes, the plea, the _need_.

Peter rose slowly, deliberately, stepped around the coffee table. Neal's eyes followed his every move. Peter cocked his head the most minute fraction, a question so subtle no one but Neal, and maybe El, would see it. Neal's gaze didn't waver. 

“Neal,” Peter said, the name rolling off his tongue in _that_ tone without effort, like it hadn't been five years since he'd done this. 

Neal's eyelids fluttered, his shoulders, his entire stance changed, settled, relaxed, his breath rushed out in a soft sigh. When Peter held out a commanding hand, Neal walked over to him with no hesitation, and his eyes no longer met Peter's, were fixed somewhere around his chest instead. 

Peter curled his fingers around Neal's wrist as soon as he was in reach, none too gently, and yanked him close, buried his other hand in Neal's hair. Neal stumbled into him, their legs and chests suddenly touching, and Peter's hand pulled his head up and to the side until he could kiss him, could kiss his pretty, lying mouth, could take it all away, the smooth words and charming smiles, the lies and misdirections, could replace it with his tongue and his taste and exchange Neal's breath with his own. And the best thing, the absolutely best thing, was how Neal just _melted_ in his arms, how he made that needy little whimper in the back of his throat and just opened up and let Peter kiss him as harshly, as deeply, as filthily as Peter wanted to. 

A roaring filled Peter's ears as he clutched Neal close with greedy hands, as he fucked Neal's mouth with his tongue with no pretence at civility or good manners. Hunger burned low in his belly, deep in his chest, in his hands and his lips, a desperate ache, a desire that threatened to strangle him. He dropped Neal's wrist in favour of grabbing his ass, pulling him as close as physically possible, he bit at Neal's lips as Neal slung his now free arm around his shoulders for balance. Neal clutched back, pushed back, rubbed himself against Peter in greedy little twitches, turned his head so Peter could kiss him deeper still. 

Peter turned them, pushed Neal away roughly even while he caught a last taste of Neal's mouth. Neal staggered back a step, gave him a dazed blink. Peter gestured at the couch, nodded at the robe. 

“Off. Down.”

Neal's clever fingers had the knot undone in the blink of an eye even while he looked over his shoulder at where Peter had pointed. The robe slithered off of him with a simple shrug, and then he was on his back on the couch, all but jumped on it, spread his legs for Peter as Peter bore down on him, climbed over him until they were face to face, the tip of Neal's nose just an inch from his own, Neal's knees rising to cradle his waist. 

Neal's pupils were huge, dilated like a drug addict's, his lips were dark and parted as he panted under Peter, _for_ Peter. He was flushed and sweaty, his bare chest heaving, his hands rising to wrap around Peter's back. There was a cut across his chest and abdomen, shallow, blood a crust on it. Peter growled in displeasure, bit Neal's shoulder. Neal was his, his, _his_. How dare another man leave a mark on him. Neal moaned, squirmed, pressed himself into Peter's teeth and tried to pull him down. Peter growled again and shrugged impatiently against Neal's hands, didn't budge, securely braced against the cushions on his elbows. Neal made a choked noise and dropped his hands from Peter's back, rested them along Peter's ribs instead. Peter rewarded him with a kiss against the spot he'd bitten, then raised his head and pressed his lips against Neal's again, waited until Neal eagerly opened his mouth before he deepened the kiss. 

When he pulled away, Neal groaned and raised his arms over his head, rested them over the arm of the couch, fingers loosely curled. He tilted his head back, bared his throat, arched his back and pushed his ass upwards. He was open, bare, and every line of his body screamed submission, total submission to Peter. Peter was so hard for him it actively hurt.

He fumbled for his belt buckle, his zipper, as he pressed his face to Neal's throat, as he breathed him in, licked him, bit him, kissed him, sucked on his skin, over and over, moving from spot to spot to spot. 

“Peter...!” Neal wriggled, his voice was strained. “Peter, please, Peter, please, please, please, Peter, please...”

Peter made a guttural noise as the begging went straight to his already straining dick, and bit down sharply on Neal's collarbone. Neal gasped, then whined, high in the back of his throat. 

He finally managed to open his pants and push the fabric down, out of the way. He reached up and shoved two fingers into Neal's mouth. Neal choked, caught on an inhale, but sucked anyway. This time, it was Peter who whimpered as that wet heat tightened around his skin. He pulled his fingers out most of the way, heel of his hand braced against Neal's chin, then pushed them in again, once, twice, just because it felt so good. Some other time, he would have played longer, would have revelled in the noises Neal made and the way he twisted his body under Peter's, restless, and in how utterly _willing_ Neal was, how he was saying 'anything, I'll give you anything' with every straining muscle and hitched breath and eager stroke of tongue. But not today. Peter withdrew his fingers, nearly came at Neal's noise of disappointment and reached down between Neal's legs. 

Both his fingers sank easily into Neal's body, and he was wet.

Peter had to take a deep breath and keep himself very still for a moment as he realized that Neal was ready, that he didn't have to wait, and that Neal must've prepared himself while he was in the bathroom. 

Then he pulled his fingers out, Neal said “Now, now, now, please, Peter!” and Peter gripped his thighs and pushed in. 

The heat and the tightness was incredible, and it was _Neal_ , Neal, pretty, infuriating Neal, who drove him up the wall and always tested his boundaries and Neal, who submitted so beautifully and rewarded Peter's efforts with such vulnerability and trust, and Peter loved him so much, so, so much. 

Peter had no control left. All that was left was to thrust, and to pant, and to dig his fingers into the soft skin of Neal's thighs, sure to leave bruises. All that was left was guttural noises and the way Neal's body strained under him, tried to get closer, tried to push back, couldn't because Peter had all the leverage, all the control. All that was left was to take Neal, hard and rough, until he went pliant and passive, until he gave Peter that last little bit of submission, until he gave Peter _everything_.

Only then did Peter take his hand from Neal's leg, and Neal made no attempt to brace himself, kept himself where Peter had put him, and so Peter reached and slid his fingers along Neal's very hard erection. Neal gave a shout, convulsed, and came on the spot, writhed in reaction. Peter tried to hold himself in check, just a moment more, but it was futile. He felt the point of no return pass him by, and then his body hurried him along and seized and shuddered and released in the most exquisite, agonising way.

***

“I'm sorry, Peter,”Neal mumbled, his head buried against Peter's shoulder and his fingers clenched in the back of Peter's shirt. “I'm so sorry.”

Peter flashed back to that day under the overpass, to the blood and the pain and the death. These were the exact same words, the exact same tone. Peter would never forget them. And Neal was far too tense. He was supposed to be a boneless, well-fucked mess, not cling to Peter like this. 

Peter pushed himself back up on his elbows, forced Neal to dislodge his face from the crook of Peter's neck. Neal's eyes met his, earnest and pained and miserable. 

“What?” Peter demanded.

“Peter... I'm sorry. I shouldn't have... _We_ shouldn't have... I know it was wrong, but I couldn't say no, I couldn't, even if it's a mistake, and it'll hurt, and... I'm sorry.”

“What are you talking about?” Peter snapped, and for a moment, Neal's eyes dropped, submission his first instinctual response, but then he looked back at Peter, jaw stubborn. 

“We can't pick up where we left of, you know that, right? This,” he waved his hand between their chests, “this can't happen again. In fact, I should probably go...” He attempted to wriggle out from under Peter, and Peter clamped his hands down on his upper arms, narrowed his eyes. 

“No,” he rumbled, and even he was surprised by how fierce, how vicious it came out. Neal looked at him with wide eyes and shuddered a little. Still, he wasn't done arguing. 

“We can't, Peter. Neal Caffrey is _dead_. I can't just waltz back into your life, too many people would recognize me. I can't return to New York, not for another 50 years or so. And...” His hands were warm as he stroked them up and down Peter's back, once. “And Andrew was right, I can't keep you.” He turned his head to the side, brow furrowed with pain. 

Peter took a deep breath, then another one, and loosened his grip on Neal's arms slightly. 

“Neal...”

“It's how it works, Peter,” Neal said quietly. “You die, you move on.”

“Did you set it up? Back then, under the overpass... did you plan that?” The question had been plaguing Peter, but he winced a little as he heard how accusing he sounded. 

Neal turned his head again, looked at him with wide blue eyes. “No!” His hands ran along Peter's back again, soothing and apologetic. “No, Peter, I didn't. It was an accident.” He scowled. “Believe me, I was pissed as hell. Neal Caffrey would've had another five years in him. And... it was a good life.”

“And still, you let me believe you were dead.”

“What was I supposed to do, Peter?” Neal asked gently. 

Peter huffed out an unhappy sigh. Neal was right, of course. It hurt that Neal hadn't trusted him with this secret, but really, rationally, who would? 

“But you were planning on faking your death eventually.”

Neal shrugged. “Look at me. I can't really pull of forty, so, yeah.”

Peter was looking, running his eyes over Neal's familiar features. “You're just too pretty,” he told him absently. “And you look about twenty.”

Neal rewarded him with a faint smile. “I was twenty-three when I died the first time, actually.”

“How did you die the first time?” Peter asked before he could stop himself. 

Neal grimaced. “Hunting accident. I was gored by a wild boar. Not a pleasant way to go, let me tell you.”

Peter winced in sympathy. Three shots to the chest was probably a better way to die, in comparison. 

“And then?”

Neal sighed. “And then I woke up in the dark and dug my way out of my grave and went home. My mother screamed when she saw me and my little sister fainted, and my father and my brothers ran me off our land with swords and stones and arrows while everyone shouted about witchcraft and devilry. Luckily, it didn't take too long before I met my teacher, who explained to me what had happened.”

“You... didn't know?”

Neal gave him a wry look. “No, we don't come equipped with a manual.”

Peter was silent for a moment, looked down at Neal under him, studied him. He looked so young that Peter felt vaguely ashamed and very turned on. And despite the fact that he only now realized the scope of things he didn't know about Neal, eight-hundred years worth of it, he felt closer to him than ever before. There was no question about it: he couldn't let Neal go. 

So he told him: “You're not going anywhere.”

Neal squirmed. “Peter...”

“No. Listen to me. We'll work something out. I'm not losing you again.”

“I told you, I can't go back to New York. Too many of your friends saw me die, too many of them would recognise me if they came across me.”

“Then we'll move. I have to discuss this with El, of course, but New York isn't the only city on the continent.”

Neal stared at him with big eyes, blinked, opened his mouth, closed it again. “But, Peter... New York is your _home_. Your work is there, all your friends...”

“I've got some possibilities with other offices in the country. In fact, it might even be a promotion. As for the friends...” He shrugged. “There's the phone, and I can make new ones.”

“But... what about Elizabeth's business?”

“As I said, I'll need to talk to her about it, but I'm pretty sure she'll be willing to move if it means we can have you back. I definitely am.”

Neal heaved a big sigh, his eyes flicking to the side. Peter could tell he was undecided, tempted, arguing with himself. 

“What...” Neal had to clear his throat. “What if I'm not sure I want to come back?”

That hurt, and Peter knew it showed, that Neal could see him clench his teeth, close his eyes for a moment. 

“I... Peter, I don't know whether I can do it. Don't you see? Andrew was _right_. I can't keep you! It hurt so much giving you up the first time around. You and El, you're going to grow old, and you're going to die, and I'll have to go on. A decade, two, three... and then I'll be alone again.” 

Neal sounded lost, defeated, and all Peter wanted to do was wrap him in his arms and snarl at the whole world to go away. Obviously, that wasn't an option. 

“So you'd rather hurt right away, when you don't even need to yet?” he asked. It was difficult to put his objections into words, but he forged on anyway. “Yes, we'll die. We _all_ die, Neal. Even you. You think I'm not scared of the day Elizabeth is going to die? Maybe she'll go before me! Or maybe I'll be first, and leave her alone. You think I've never thought about that? I have. And the thing is, it's going to happen. There's no way out of it, for either of us. That's just part of life. We'll die, even if we live to be a hundred. And I'm an FBI agent, I carry a gun. You of all people know how dangerous the job can be. Or El could get sick, or have an accident. So, I think I understand your fear. But, Neal... you're not so different. You just told me that there's a bunch of people out there who want to cut your head off. Who's to say it won't be me and El who get left behind when one of them succeeds?”

“I'm pretty good at hiding.”

“Yeah, I know you are. So, yes, it's likely you'll have to go on without us. But, Neal... there's still years we could have together. For you, it might just be a couple of decades, but for El and me, it's our _life_. We only have the one, we don't get do-overs. And we don't want to spend it without you. The last few years... Neal...” He didn't know how to express how flat and empty life had been without him. “Would it really be so much worse to be with us for as much time as we have?” he asked instead. “Would you really hurt less if you never saw us again after today, rather than in thirty years?”

Neal frowned unhappily. “I don't know. Peter...” His eyes searched Peter's face. “What if I love you even more? What if, after all that time with you, I can't let go?”

“I don't know,” Peter admitted. “But if you leave now, will you regret it after we die?”

Neal blew out an explosive sigh and then gave Peter a slightly rueful look. “Damn you, Peter. Why do you always have to ask the difficult questions?”

“It's my job to ask difficult questions,” Peter pointed out. “Someone has to.”

Neal sighed again, closed his eyes and thumped his head back against the cushion. Peter leaned down and kissed the edge of his jaw, right next to his chin. 

“Peter...” Neal protested, but it sounded distinctly half-hearted. 

“Sorry,” Peter mumbled against Neal's skin and dragged himself forward an inch so he could kiss the corner of Neal's mouth, too. Neal turned his head, their lips met, and Peter finally let go of Neal's arms so he could brace one hand against the armrest of the couch and bury the other in Neal's hair. They kissed slowly, deeply, and for a long time. Peter had been addicted to Neal's mouth since the first time he'd had it, since the first time he'd tasted Neal's clever tongue against his own, since the first time he'd felt the thrill at how Neal opened to him. It was familiar now, still, and so, so good. For a little while, Peter forgot everything but Neal, here and now. 

They were both breathing deeply by the time Peter drew back. Neal's eyes fluttered open with delicious, drugged lethargy and he looked up at Peter with such open longing that it damn near broke his heart, _again_. 

“Stay,” Peter said quietly, asking, not ordering. “At least until Monday. Stay and think about it.”

Neal's lips curled up, and then he laughed, a little honest amusement, a little self-deprecation. “Yes, Peter. Because rational thought is so easy to come by in your company.”

Peter had to smile down at him in return, smug and pleased and flattered. 

Neal shook his head, tousling his hair against the cushion, rolled his eyes, and pulled Peter's head down for another long, lazy kiss. 

When they parted, Neal ran his fingertips over Peter's cheek, brushed the pad of his thumb over Peter's lips, looked at him with serious eyes. 

“Okay. Until Monday, and I'll think about it.”

Peter felt his chest expand as if a crushing weight had suddenly lifted from it. He ducked his head to press a brief kiss to Neal's lips, to the bridge of his nose, to his forehead. 

“Thank you.” His voice came out as a hoarse murmur. 

Neal nodded and pressed his face into the crook of Peter's neck, wrapped his arms around him, pressed himself close. 

Then he yawned, his breath hot against Peter's collarbone through the thin fabric of his shirt.

“C'mon,” Peter said and started to disentangle himself. “Let's go to bed. I'm too old to fall asleep on the couch.”

Neal followed him placidly, his fingers wound tight with Peter's. He helped Peter undress with his quick fingers and curled into Peter's embrace under the sheets. 

For the first time in years Peter fell asleep with hope a bright glow in his heart.


	8. Chapter 8

Saturday afternoon found Peter on the couch, reviewing his files, with Neal curled up against his side. Peter distractedly carded his fingers through Neal's hair, and Neal made a wordless little noise, shifted an infinitesimal fraction closer, turned his head to nuzzle against Peter's shoulder. He was warm and heavy and pliant, his hair still a little wet from their shower. Peter turned his head and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. God, he loved seeing Neal like this, artless, natural, stripped of all his masks. This was pure Neal, with tousled hair, in a rumpled robe (yukata, Neal said it was called), in the dazed, boneless, almost drugged state of mind he reached if Peter did his job right. This was Neal when he stopped thinking, planning, plotting, conning, this was Neal when he trusted and gave up control. Peter kissed the same spot again, felt the slight damp against his skin, breathed in the scent of Neal's shampoo. It brought to mind the way Neal had looked, hands braced against the tiles of the shower wall, water sluicing down his lovely, naked back where Peter licked it off while he ran his hands over every inch of Neal's skin he could reach, warm and real and alive. It reminded him of the way Neal had sounded when Peter had him, fucked him into the state he was in now. It was distracting, and rather more interesting than his files. But Peter certainly wasn't twenty anymore, and much to his chagrin, no matter how tempting Neal was, he needed a few more hours before he'd be able to make up for lost time again. So he turned most of his attention back to his files with Neal cuddled against him like a big, handsome kitten. And that wasn't half bad, either. 

Peter'd become engrossed in his third file, some complicated mess of possible insurance fraud, when he felt Neal suddenly straighten. Neal rolled off the couch, gaze sharpening, careful control flowing back into his motions. 

“What...?” Peter asked as Neal reached for his sword. 

“An Immortal,” Neal told him absently, head cocked as if he were listening to something Peter couldn't hear, and stalked over to the window, flattened himself to the wall next to it and peered out. Peter quickly crossed the room to join him, his hand automatically reaching for his side arm– only to encounter empty air as he realized he wasn't actually wearing his holster. But Neal breathed a faint sigh of relief next to him, his shoulders relaxed as he turned with a faint smile. The smile vanished as he blinked, apparently surprised to find Peter so close. Peter leaned past him to look out the window even while Neal's hand landed on his chest as if to stop him. 

Ms Louvel stood on the sidewalk across the street, looking up at the hotel. 

Peter looked at Neal. Neal sighed, ran a hand through his hair, shrugged. 

“You're not surprised. You knew about her?”

Peter inclined his head. “Pretty much, yeah. You weren't going to tell me.”

Neal winced a little and gave him a pleading look with his big blue eyes. “Look, Peter, it's not my secret to tell, okay? I'm not outing anyone without their consent.”

Peter scowled a little, but had to admit he couldn't fault Neal for that. So he leaned over and pushed the window open. Ms Louvel lowered her sunglasses when he stuck his head out. 

“Room 26. Come on up,” he called down to her. 

Neal was leaning his sword against the wall and looking at him with raised eyebrows when he closed the window again. Peter shrugged a “What?” at him. 

Only minutes later, a quick knock sounded on the door. Neal looked at him askance, and Peter gestured for him to go ahead and get the door. 

“Hello, Amanda,” Neal greeted her, leaning against the door as she sailed inside. Which was when Peter suddenly realized what Neal looked like: rumpled yukata that showed a generous slice of naked chest, bare feet, messy hair, and a rather obvious bruise high on his neck. In short, he looked like a pretty twenty-something Peter had just had his way with. That... was a little embarrassing. At least Ms Louvel was aware that Neal wasn't as young as he looked– Peter hoped. 

She shot a quick look at Peter as Neal closed the door behind her. 

“It's okay,” Neal said. “Peter knows about the whole immortality thing.” 

“Oh, well, in that case...” Louvel whirled on him and put her hands on her hips. “You couldn't _call_?! I have to read on the internet that you get run over, that there's mysterious lightning in a _park_ , and I can't reach you! Do you know how worried I was?!”

Neal looked remarkably sheepish. “I'm sorry, Amanda, really I am. I was...” he made a vague gesture “...distracted.” 

Louvel looked him up and down. “Yes, I can tell,” she said acidly. “And while I'm certainly happy for you, you, young man, owe me an explanation.”

Young man? Really? 

Neal made a sweeping gesture towards the couch. “Of course. Have a seat, and I'll explain.” 

Louvel kept her severe look on him for a moment longer, then followed the invitation, nodding at Peter along the way. 

“Agent Burke.”

“Ms Louvel.” 

To his surprise, she smiled faintly and waved a hand. “Please, call me Amanda.” Peter inclined his head, but didn't offer her his first name just yet. From the quick, sly quirk of her lips, this didn't escape her, but she took a seat without comment, and then fixed her eyes on Neal again, who sprawled himself into the arm chair. 

“Okay.” Neal said. “It was Andrew. He tracked me down.” 

Louvel... Amanda lost the severe look, her eyebrows shooting up in surprised dismay instead. “Oh, Neal, darling...”

Neal gave her an unhappy little half smile. “Yeah. So, he ran me over, I died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital and walked out of the morgue. He was trailing me and I was trying to make a run for it when Peter showed up.” Neal looked over at Peter, puzzled. “Which, by the way... what were you doing there? How did you even find me? Why are you even in Japan?” 

Amanda answered before Peter could. “This week's KID heist. They thought it was me and called in Agent Burke.”

Neal blinked, then apparently decided to bench the rest of his questions for later. “Okay, well, we got my stuff and went to Ginkakuji Temple, and my mystery stalker turned out to be Andrew. We talked, it didn't go well, he threatened Peter and El, I challenged him.” Neal shrugged again. “Obviously, I won.”

Amanda made an upset little sound and hurried around the coffee table. To Peter's surprise, she sank to her knees in front of Neal and reached for his hands, wrapped her own around them. “Oh, Neal, chéri, you did what you had to do.”

“Yeah, well...” Neal gave a bitter laugh. “I shouldn't have told him in the first place.”

“Darling, we all do silly things when we're in love.” She patted his hand. “You did your best. It's all any of us can do.”

Neal heaved a deep sigh, then tried another weak smile. “I suppose you're right.”

“Of course I'm right.” She rose and patted his cheek. “Listen to your elders, now.”

At that, Neal laughed, a real laugh, bright and amused. “Yes, Amanda, because you are such a role model.”

Amanda flicked her scarf back over one shoulder. “I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about, darling.”

Neal rose as well, and this time he was the one to weave his fingers into hers. “Thank you for checking up on me. I appreciate your concern.”

Amanda rolled her eyes. “Charmer.” Then she smiled and leaned up to kiss his cheek. “You're welcome. However, next time I expect you to call me before you let a gorgeous man distract you.”

“I will, promise.”

“Very well.” She stepped back. “I assume I shall see you back in the States?”

At that, Neal shifted his weight uncomfortably. Amanda's eyebrow arched upwards. 

“Neal?”

“I don't know yet,” Neal said hesitantly and Peter did his best to pretend that that didn't hurt. “It's... complicated.”

Amanda studied him, then raised a hand and laid it along his cheek. Peter had to swallow a hard stab of jealousy at how her thumb stroked over Neal's cheekbone, how Neal's eyes went soft at the touch.

“Chéri, we all know how painful it is to love mortals. But I believe a mutual friend of ours would tell you that it's worth the pain, however short your time with them.”

Neal studied her for a moment, then smiled, a small, fond smile. “He would say that, wouldn't he? Thank you, again.”

She reached up with her other hand, pulled his head down, and planted a kiss on his forehead. “You're welcome.” Then she stepped back. “Now, I'll leave you boys to play. I'm sure you have plenty of catching up to do.” She turned to Peter and winked at him, actually winked. Then she poked Neal in the chest with one painted fingernail. “You, don't forget to call. Agent Burke, it's been a pleasure to see you again. Do take good care of him. Neal, I'll be seeing you.”

They did this French air-kissing thing next to each other's cheeks as a good-bye, and they made it look smooth. Then Amanda flounced back out of the room, which suddenly seemed much quieter. 

“So...” Peter said after a little silence, “how old is she?”

Neal's eyebrows rose, then he smirked and walked back over to Peter to lean into him, wrap his arms around Peter's waist. Peter could practically feel his ruffled ego settling at Neal's looking for his proximity so openly. 

“Why, Peter. You know it's not polite to ask for a lady's age.” His eyes were pure mischief. 

“It's not polite to ask _her_ ,” Peter corrected. “Also, she's a thief, not a lady.”

Neal chuckled, a sound like the purr of a big cat. “A thief and a lady.” He grinned. “A lady thief. A thousand-two-hundred-year-old lady thief.”

Peter felt his eyes go big. “A thousand...?” He shook his head. “I can't even imagine that.”

Neal leaned into him with a soft hum. “It's... it's strange, when you put it out there like that. On the one hand, I've seen so much, lived such a long time... on the other hand, it doesn't feel like eight hundred years. It's just my life, things that have happened to me, people I've met... And there's so many places I haven't been, so many events I didn't see, so many people I didn't meet. Sometimes I feel so old, and sometimes I feel like that same foolish boy who danced with the pretty girls and drank with the handsome men and thought he was invincible, and that life would always be the same.” Neal laughed again. “How could I have ever imagined planes and computers and cities of chrome and glass and millions of people all in the same place? And yet here I am, and for all that's changed, life still isn't so different. People love and raise children, build houses and go to work, there's still art and music and laughter.” He cuddled into Peter, rested his head on his shoulder. 

Peter rubbed his back, held him close, this precious, unique, extraordinary man, and was fiercely glad that that foolish boy had been born immortal so that Peter could meet him.

***

Peter woke Sunday morning to the sun shining and Neal asleep in his arms. For a time, he just watched him, watched his chest rise and fall with his breath, his pulse beat in his neck, all these things that meant life, that meant he was alive, here, with Peter.

It hurt beyond anything to think that this might be the last morning Peter would ever wake to this, so he tried not to think about it too much. 

It didn't do much good. He wanted to take Neal with him, bring him home to El, to their bed, to make future mornings like this perfect, for as long as they had together. 

He'd phoned with El last night, shortly, made awkward by Neal being there, silent, as Peter ran his fingers through his hair with his wife's voice in his ear. He wanted to tell El, but this was no conversation to be had over the phone– and if Neal left, if they were to never see him again, he'd resolved not to tell El. He couldn't do it to her, couldn't give her this pain of knowing that Neal was out there but couldn't ( _wouldn't_ ) be with them. 

With a sigh, he curled closer, buried his nose in Neal's hair, breathed in his scent, sleep-warm and musky-male. 

He wanted to order Neal to come back with him, tie him down and force him if he had to, but for all the dynamics of their relationship, that wasn't how it worked. He almost snorted out loud. Andrew had certainly shown what happened to people who tried to force Neal into anything he didn't want. No, for all that he was dominant to Neal's submissive, he was well aware that he only had the power Neal chose to give him. And really, he wouldn't have it any other way. The rush he got was _because_ Neal chose to surrender willingly. How could he ever have lived with himself, with his desires, if it was any other way? Still, he wished... 

He stroked the backs of his fingers across Neal's stomach gently, feather-light. He wished Neal would come with him. 

Neal chose that moment to wake, long lashes fluttering as he turned to blink up sleepily at Peter. His eyes were serious, wistful, as they met Peter's, and for a time, they just looked at each other, studied each other, memorized each other. Then Neal raised a hand to trail his fingers down Peter's cheek, across his lips. His hand slid to the back of Peter's neck, and he stretched up to fit their lips together, to kiss Peter gentle and soft and slow. 

Peter's elbow was aching where he was leaning on it when Neal pulled back again, and he really needed to shift position, but he couldn't bring himself to let go of Neal's dark, serious gaze, couldn't bring himself to break the moment. 

"I love you," Neal told him. It wasn't the first time he'd said those words, far from it, but it still made Peter's heart jump and clench and ache, in the best and worst way possible. He didn't answer, because he could see Neal wasn't finished. 

Neal sighed, and closed his eyes, and rolled to close the last inch of space between them, wrapped his arms around Peter and buried his head against his chest. 

"I don't want to leave you." His voice was muffled, his breath was hot and moist against Peter's skin. 

Peter nuzzled his face into the dark hair under his chin, pressed a kiss to the top of Neal's head. "Then don't."

Neal's arms tightened around him. "I don't want to," he repeated, and his tone carried all the objections he was struggling with. 

Peter shifted to wrap his own arms around him, pressed kisses into his tousled curls. He didn't know what to say, except...

"I love you." Maybe he did know what to say. "El loves you. We miss you."

Neal gave a little sob. "I miss you, too." His voice was thick, and Peter wasn't sure what he'd do if Neal started crying, because Neal never cried, hadn't ever cried that Peter knew, not over Kate and not over going back to prison and not over killing a man he'd once loved. 

But Neal breathed, a few deep, wet breaths, sniffled, and then looked up at Peter with eyes that were a little glassy, a little reddened, but he wasn't crying. Instead, he gave Peter a wobbly smile. "You make it sound so easy."

Peter shrugged. "It'll take a little work, and telling El will be..." He shook his head. "I'm not quite sure how to do that, to be honest, but... we can work it out. There's nothing impossible about it." He studied Neal, leaned in to press a kiss to his forehead, and couldn't resist a plea. "Come home, Neal."

"God!" Neal exclaimed, and pulled one hand from Peter's back to pinch the bridge of his nose, staving off tears. "I want to, Peter, I want to so much..."

"But?"

Neal's eyes searched his. "But... isn't it too good to be true?"

Peter looked at him, his handsome features and vibrant eyes, _alive_. "It is," he agreed, and leaned in to press his face against Neal's temple. "I thought you were dead." And damn it, now he was the one close to tears. 

Neal held himself still for a moment, then slung his arm back around Peter. 

"I'm sorry." 

And his tone was full of sorrow, and Peter believed him, which made it possible for him to say: "It wasn't your fault," and mean it, too. 

Neal took a huge breath, leaned his head against Peter's shoulder, and then Peter felt him collecting himself. Peter couldn't breathe. He could just hold on, from moment to moment, because maybe he'd have to let go, maybe he'd never feel the warmth and smoothness of that skin under his hands again. 

"Okay," Neal said quietly. "I... okay."

Peter raised his head to look at him, because... "Okay?"

Neal nodded, tried one of his cocky half-smiles and ruined it by biting his lip, and his eyes were huge and blue and scared and hopeful all at the same time. 

Peter kissed him, hard and fast, and then rolled them over so he was on top and could run his hands down Neal's sides and over his chest, greedily, and press more kisses to his cheeks and jaw and neck, and Neal laughed, and moaned, "Peter..." and Peter had to kiss him on the mouth again because... Neal had laughed, real and free, and it was the most beautiful sound in existence and he just had to taste where it came from. 

And then he had to taste again, and again, because Neal was moaning, and his hands were caressing Peter's shoulders, his back, the back of his neck, running up into his hair. Then he pushed Peter back, roughly, and before Peter could do more than blink in confusion, he'd flipped himself over, pushed up on elbows and knees. 

He looked over his shoulder. “Come on!” he demanded, and wriggled his ass at Peter. 

So Peter slapped it. “That's 'Please, Peter, fuck me' to you,” Peter growled into his ear as he ran his hands along Neal's legs and flanks, draped himself over Neal. 

Neal moaned, bucked up and back into him, tilted his head so Peter could kiss his throat, the edge of his jaw, behind his ear. “Please, Peter!” he gasped. “Please, will you fuck me, please?”

Peter might have whimpered. He pulled himself away long enough to grab the lube, and had barely gotten two slick fingers between the cheeks of Neal's ass before Neal reached back a hand to grab his thigh and pull him closer. 

“Don't bother,” he moaned. “I'll be fine, just do yourself.”

“Neal...” Peter protested, even as his hand went to do as Neal'd directed. 

Neal craned his neck to throw him another look over his shoulder, eyes dark with lust, cheeks flushed. “It's _fine_ , you can't hurt me anyway. I want you. Please?”

Peter was reasonably sure that he should put up more of a fight, but he was so hard it hurt and all he could think of was to have Neal as fast as possible, and really, considering he was eight-hundred years old and immortal, maybe Neal knew his own limits far better than Peter had ever given him credit for, and anyway, he was already pushing in, hands clamped around Neal's hips, and, fuck, that was tight. 

Neal gave a shout, and Peter would've pulled back then if Neal hadn't also simultaneously pushed backwards, so clearly that was a noise of approval, not pain, so Peter could thankfully get closer, deeper into the tight, clinging heat of Neal's body, as Neal pushed and arched and writhed under him, his slick back against Peter's stomach, his thighs against Peter's. 

“Please,” he moaned. “Please, just... Oh! Yes, just, like that, just have me...”

So Peter did. Because, really, who could resist?, and Neal felt so good, and he was here, for Peter, and he said he'd stay, and Peter felt like a supernova had exploded in his chest, like light was filling him up, should be bursting out of his skin as he realized that this wasn't good-bye, this was the opposite of good-bye, that Neal would be with him and that he could take him home to El and that they could be happy again.


	9. Chapter 9

Peter moved around the hotel room, packing, and he'd probably be far more efficient at it if his gaze didn't keep straying to Neal. 

Neal was sprawled out on the bed, one leg propped up, dressed for the first time in two days in dark dress slacks and a white shirt, with Peter's computer in front of him and a small box full of passports and credit cards spilling over the bed spread. He looked every inch the con-man: effortlessly handsome, artfully rumpled, with his very illegal documents out in the open. 

And Peter should probably mind. Instead, he was filled with giddy warmth, because this meant Neal _trusted_ him. And knowing what he did now about Neal, he knew that Neal couldn't be a legal citizen, that no matter how much he might want to, he _had_ to forge his birth and school records. Of course, he was aware that Neal didn't particularly care about legalities. Given that he'd seen kings and queens, tyrants and presidents come and go, maybe that was even understandable. Mostly, Peter just trusted him in return. 

“All right, that's that,” Neal announced when Peter came back with his toiletries from the en-suite. “I'll be in New York three hours after you.” Peter ruffled his hair on his way past the bed, and Neal gave him a bright smile. “That should give you a little time to prepare El.”

Peter dumped his toiletries into the suitcase and came over to slump on the edge of the bed. 

“Yeah, I still have no idea how to go about that,” he admitted. 

Neal wrapped an arm around his middle from behind, kissed his shoulder, his lips warm through the fabric of Peter's shirt. “You'll be fine. You and El have one of the most functional marriages I've ever seen– just tell her.”

Peter laughed a little, leaned back into Neal. “Somehow I don't think it'll be that easy.”

“I'll be at your place around one to provide proof you're not crazy.” Peter could hear the smirk.

“Much appreciated,” he told Neal dryly, turned his head to kiss Neal's temple, and then rose to finish packing.

***

Since his flight left early in the morning from Tokyo, they had to leave in the middle of the night. With Neal there, they could split the driving, so Peter opted for that rather than leaving earlier and spending the night in another hotel near the airport. He could always sleep on the plane, after all.

It was ridiculous, but he didn't look forward to being separated from Neal for the twelve hours it would take to get back to the States. There was a part of him that couldn't quite believe this was real, and that expected Neal to vanish like a dream if he let him out of his sight. 

“Shh, Peter,” Neal said, leaned into his side where he stood looking out the window. “I'll be there.” And that proofed that Neal knew him far too well. 

Peter wrapped his arms around Neal, pulled him close. “You promise?”

“I promise.”

Peter surveyed him sceptically. “And you're not lying?”

Neal looked earnest, but a bit wounded around the edges. “I'm not lying.”

Peter kissed him, briefly. “You're a conman. We both know I wouldn't notice if you were lying to me.”

At that Neal laughed, and kissed him back. “Never for long, Peter, never for long.” He grinned up at Peter, bright and affectionate. 

Peter made a sceptical noise, and tightened his arms. “Long enough.”

Neal settled happily against him, head on Peter's shoulder and arms around him, and hummed contentedly. “Not lying. Not in my best interest, and all.”

“That's more reassuring,” Peter told him, and rested his cheek against the silky curls of his hair. God, he loved this man.

***

He was jet-lagged and sleep-confused when he arrived at JFK a day later. Driving through the night, then sleeping on and off through a day-long morning had him disoriented, and he remembered half-waking, reaching for Neal, only to realise that Neal wasn't there, that he wasn't in a bed. Dreams mingled with memories in a morass of images and emotions, so bright and acute, while rational thought was slippery, he couldn't follow them, didn't know what was real and what wasn't. When he woke properly on approach, just for a moment, he was certain that Neal was dead, and that what had happened in Japan was a dream.

All through getting off the plane and baggage-claim, he was struggling to reconcile reality and his memories. He _knew_ what he remembered. And yet– it was so preposterous, and here he was, back home in the good old U.S. of A., where he had a job and a wife, a house and a dog... how _could_ it be true? Was he really not just back from that conference, the one after which he'd thought he'd seen Neal for the first time? But, no. He checked his watch, and the date told him the last couple months really had happened. 

It was the middle of the morning in New York, and El and he had agreed that there was no sense in her picking him up when he'd phoned with her. With driving, she'd lose the entire morning at work, and while he missed her, it was just sensible to wait the few hours and meet for lunch. At least, that was what he'd thought when they phoned. Now he wished he'd taken her up on her offer, wished he could take her in his arms, feel her against him and smell her shampoo, her perfume, could look into her beautiful face, into her eyes, and kiss her. 

He turned his phone back on, determined to at least text her to let her know he'd arrived safely. 

There was a message waiting for him. 

_Miss you_ , it read. _Will see you soon. Give El a kiss for me. P.S.: Stop freaking out._

That was it, no signature, and he didn't know the number it had come from. 

Peter had to stop for a moment, forcing the crowd to part around him on its way to the exit, and breathe deeply. It _wasn't_ a dream. It really, really wasn't. 

He checked the time-stamp, and saw Neal must've sent it before he boarded his own plane. Peter smiled ruefully as he typed a quick text to El. Neal did know him far too well.

***

Peter rose from the couch as he heard the key in the lock. He'd driven home, unpacked, taken Satchmo for a walk, and picked up something for lunch. And for the last ten minutes, he'd sat on the couch, and tried to come up with an approach to telling El that wouldn't have her convinced he was suffering a nervous break-down.

Now, as she poked her head in the door and smiled on seeing him, he had to concede that there probably wasn't an easy way to have this conversation, and that he probably should take Neal's advice and just tell her. He was reasonably sure she'd wait for Neal's promised appearance before she had him committed. (If Neal came. No, he would. He'd _promised_. Peter just wished the part of him that had grieved for five years would stop telling him it was too good to be true.)

“Hey, hun,” El said with a smile. To an outsider, this might seem like a very understated greeting to the husband who'd just returned from abroad, but he heard all the private meanings in the words, their own secret language. 

“Hey, hun,” he returned, and then swept her into his arms, kissed her, buried his face in her hair for a moment, then kissed her again. Neal had asked, after all. 

He'd missed her. God, he'd missed her. Not just this last weekend (was it really only a weekend?), but through all these last, long months. He'd known he was neglecting her. He hadn't realized how much he missed her. 

And it that moment, he made a decision. Whether Neal appeared on their doorstep in an hour or not, things were going to change. Yes, he loved the chase, loved being in the field. But he wasn't a young man anymore. He was still strong and fit, but there was the occasional twinge in his back, a jab in his knee. His reactions were starting to slow. And he loved El, loved her so much. Their time together was finite, this last weekend had made him feel that more than ever before, and he wanted to make the most of it. He wanted to come home on time in the evenings, he wanted to have weekends and holidays. And he didn't want to be the one who caught three shots to the chest from a black-market gun. He didn't want to be the one in the wrong place, at the wrong time. _He_ wouldn't come back from the dead. 

He still loved his job, he still wanted to make a difference. But the relative safety of a desk job wasn't as abhorrent to him now as it had been to his younger self. He could still make a difference behind the scenes. And he could come home to his wife. 

“Hun?” El asked, stepping back to give him a discerning sweep of her eyes. “Are you alright?” Her dark hair was styled to fall over one shoulder in a sleek, glossy fall, she wore a dark blue jacket and skirt that made her look professional and impressive and brought out the blue of her eyes. 

He smiled down at her. “I'm fine.”

She looked at him again, cocked her head, and walked into the house to set her purse aside, kick off her shoes, before she turned to face him again. 

“You look...” She trailed off, shook her head a little. 

Peter knew what she meant. He felt... different. More awake, more resolved, more _alive_. 

“Honey, I need to tell you something,” he said, and her eyes narrowed a little, her posture straightened. “Nothing bad,” he hastened to assure her, and took a seat on the couch. 

She settled in the other corner, turned towards him, legs tucked up under herself a little. She gave Satch an absent-minded pat hello when he planted his head on the couch cushion by her knees, but her attention was on Peter. 

“It's...” Peter looked at his hands, folded in his lap, for a moment, breathed out, and met her eyes again. “It's pretty crazy,” he admitted. “Please, honey, hear me out. I swear to you, I know how it'll sound, but I'm telling you the truth.” 

Her eyebrows were high, but she nodded at him to go on. 

“Well.” He took another fortifying breath. “When I went to that conference in Japan, I took the opportunity to follow Louvel.” 

El smiled a little, not surprised. 

“I tailed her to an art gallery opening, and she was there with a man.” He met her eyes solemnly. “That man looked like Neal.” El's eyes immediately turned sorrowful, compassionate, but he forged on. “ _Exactly_ like Neal. I don't mean a close resemblance. I mean he looked the same, moved the same, smiled the same. Wore his hat the same. Same voice, just with a different accent. He looked exactly like Neal did five years ago, hell, ten years ago.” How had he never realized that Neal didn't change at all between the first time he ever saw him in front of that bank, and the day he died? Familiarity, Peter thought, and the fact that Neal was very good at subtle distractions: a different hair-style, different way of dressing, a little more five-o'clock shadow allowed on his cheeks. 

“He introduced himself as Noel. I looked him up. Noel Aiton, 23, British-French descend, teaching English at a Japanese high-school in Kyoto. Never been to the U.S. No sign of how or when or why he'd come into contact with Louvel.” Peter sighed. “Of course, maybe they could've just met. And it was impossible for him to be Neal, right?”

El leaned forward to grasp one of his hands. “Oh, Peter, honey...” 

He gave her a small smile. “That's not nearly the entire story,” he told her. “It gets so much weirder...” For a moment, he considered just coming out and saying: “Turns out, it really was Neal, he's alive, he's immortal”. But he thought, maybe it would be a little easier to swallow if he told her the things he'd found, first. He'd approached this revelation step by step, over weeks, and he still found it hard to get his head around it. 

“So. I came back, I went back to work, I tried to forget about it. Instead I looked into Louvel. And I found another thief, Amanda Montrose, a good ten years ago. And almost all the files on her were gone, destroyed. So I went to Boston. And the cops there took one look at our pictures of Louvel and identified her as Montrose, and Louvel's boyfriend as a former Boston detective, Nick Wolfe. Wolfe, according to the paper, was shot in Paris three and a half years ago, and all his files from Boston are gone, as well.” He took a deep breath. El was watching him with a frown of confusion. 

“So, what?” she asked. “This other thief and the detective changed their names, got new identities?”

“That's what I had to assume,” Peter agreed. “What other explanation is there? Only... I talked to both Louvel and her boyfriend, Crawford, face to face. Crawford doesn't look in his mid-forties, and I know you can do a lot with make-up, but Louvel _certainly_ doesn't, either, and her make-up sure didn't look heavy enough to hide that kind of age discrepancy.”

“But... I don't understand, hun. What are you saying?”

Peter took a deep breath. “I kept digging, I found more evidence pointing that way, photos and an old poster, but what it boils down to, what I'm saying is: There are people out there who don't age, not over decades, not over centuries. And when they die, they come back to life.”

El stared at him, eyes big, then gasped, pressed a hand to her mouth. “Neal...?” It was a whisper strangled by both disbelief and hope. 

Peter turned the hand El still had resting hers on, wove their fingers together, and nodded.

“Neal. Hun, he's alive.”

Her hand spasmed in his, her eyes welled with tears and she shook her head, fiercely. 

“No,” she pleaded. “No, Peter, that's impossible. I... No, please, Peter, don't... don't make me believe that.”

He squeezed her fingers. “Hun, I would never say that to you if I wasn't absolutely sure it was true. I wouldn't do that to you.”

“But... but _how_? It can't be, Peter, you know it can't! You were there when he...” 

“I know, I _know_.” He rubbed her hand in his, tried to soothe her. “I only half-believed it myself. But when I was in Japan this time, I couldn't help myself, I went after Aiton. And... I won't go into the whole story now, but... he died. He came back. I talked to him, and it is Neal, honey, it really is.” 

“But... did he say he was? How... Peter, how can you be _sure_?”

“I spent the weekend with him,” Peter admitted. “I'm sure.” For the first time, it occurred to him that El might mind. But... it was Neal. For whatever reason, El had never resented Neal's place in his life. Peter thought she understood that his feelings for Neal in no way invalidated his feelings for her. And once she'd met him... He remembered the way she'd looked at him once they were finally alone that day Neal had dropped by unannounced, her eyes dancing with mirth, smiling like she couldn't help herself. “Oh, honey, he's _gorgeous_ ,” she'd said. “And completely adorable.” 

_Adorable_ wasn't an adjective Peter had ever applied to Neal, but El steadfastly maintained that he was. And she'd welcomed him into their life, into their bed, with something Peter would almost call glee, and the two of them'd closed that side of their triangle so effortlessly, like it was never meant to be any other way. 

Now her eyes were wide, her fingers clenched around his. “You are sure,” she whispered. 

Peter nodded. “I am.”

“Where is he?” El demanded.

“He's on his way.” Peter checked his watch. “He should be here in about half an hour.”

He could feel El's hands start to shake in his, could see the hope and doubt warring on her face, and he pulled her to him, wrapped his arms around her and held on tight. He knew exactly how she felt. 

“He promised,” he told her. “He promised he'd be here.”

“Why... if he was alive all this time, why didn't he come back? Why didn't he _tell_ us?”

Peter closed his eyes for a moment, rested his cheek against El's hair. 

“It's Neal, hun,” he said, his voice thick, rough. “I think... he said it's the way they do things, that when they die, they move on. But I think it was more than that. From what he said... he had some bad experiences telling people. And he said it hurt, giving us up. I think he's scared. And when Neal's scared, he runs.”

El pushed away from him a little, wiped her eyes. “Why would he be scared? That we'd... freak out? Reject him?”

Peter nodded slowly. “Some of that. But also... Hun, he's immortal. We're not. He _will_ lose us.”

He'd rarely had to cofront his own mortality like he had this weekend. The knowledge that death _wasn't_ an incontrovertible fact for a few somehow made his own seem so much closer, so much more immediate. 

El's eyes met his with understanding. Then she shook her head slightly. “I still can't believe it. Immortal? Really?”

“Well. They can be killed,” Peter admitted. “If they get beheaded, they don't come back.”

El giggled, a nervous, involuntary sound. “Like a vampire?” she asked. 

Peter had to smile. “I guess.”

“But, I mean, how likely is that?” El asked. “Getting beheaded?”

Peter made a noise of disgust. “More likely than you'd think. There's this... they call it a _game_. Apparently, the last Immortal left standing gets some sort of reward, even if they don't know what, so some of them run around chopping each other's heads off. With swords.”

El was silent for a moment, then frowned. “You're kidding, right?”

“I wish I was,” Peter said with a sigh, leaned back slightly to run a hand through his hair, then checked the time. They still had almost half an hour until Neal was supposed to be there. “C'mon, let's have lunch, and I'll tell you the rest of the story.”

El sniffed, wiped her hands across her face again, pulled herself together, and nodded decisively. So, over sandwiches and salad, Peter told her about Neal getting run over and Andrew and all the rest. 

After, El put down her fork with a sigh. “It sounds...”

“Ridiculous?” Peter suggested. “Crazy? Like I'm having a nervous break-down?”

El laughed, though it was a bit shaky. “I was going to say, like a movie plot. But, yes, that, too.”

“Just wait for Neal to show up before you have me committed, yeah?” 

El rolled her eyes. “I wouldn't have you committed,” she told him. “Though I might call my dad for help.”

Peter pulled a face. “I think I'd rather be committed.” 

She rolled her eyes again, then leaned over the table to drop a kiss on his mouth. 

“Hun,” Peter sighed, reaching for her hand again, rubbing his thumb over the back of it. “Neal can't come back here. Not permanently. He's right when he says too many people in our life would recognize him.”

El cocked her head, studied him. “So what's the plan?”

“I thought I'd finally take that job in Washington,” Peter admitted. 

“Honey... you love being in the field.”

“I do,” Peter agreed. “But I'm not getting any younger. Maybe it's time. And I know you'd prefer to have less to worry about. And if it means having Neal back...”

El squeezed his fingers. “I'm not going to lie, I do worry. But I wouldn't want you to be stuck in a job you hated, and neither would Neal. Are you sure?”

“I'm not going to hate it,” he answered. “It's going to be a little less exciting, but I'll still get to do my part in solving cases. But what about you? Would you be alright with moving? Leaving your business?”

“We've been thinking about expanding,” El said slowly. “And Yvonne has the experience, she could run things here. I could open a second branch in Washington. There must be plenty of work there for event planners.”

He raised her hand to kiss her knuckles. “We have a plan, then?”

El exhaled shakily. “If it's real... if it means he's coming back... yes, we have a plan.”

Peter made coffee, and they moved back to the couch to wait for Neal.


End file.
